Pacific Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning
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Integrating Educational Design Research and Design Thinking to Enable Creative Pedagogies
Get PDFThis paper explores the interrelationship between educational design research, and design thinking that guides the design stage, enabling the design of authentic collaborative mobile learning environments. As an example the article outlines the design thinking principles and processes that informed the development of wireless mobile presentation systems (MOAs) designed to create a flexible infrastructure to enable the exploration of new pedagogies in different educational contexts. The project used design thinking within an educational design research methodology to provide an in house solution to creating a supporting infrastructure to enable the implementation of a new framework for creative pedagogies and curriculum redesign. The article reflects upon example implementations of using mobile social media and MOAs as a catalyst for implementing our framework for creative pedagogies, and propose collaborative curriculum design principles for integrating the use of mobile social media within new pedagogical paradigms
Automated analysis of cognitive presence in MOOC discussions
Get PDFThe Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework [1] has been broadly used to analyse learning experience in online discussion forums for two decades. Cognitive presence, which is a primary dimension of the CoI framework, manifests the reflection of (re)constructing knowledge and problem-solving processes in the learning experience [2]. Researchers doing text analysis using machine learning techniques are making promising contributions to analysing phases of cognitive presence automatically [3]–[5] in online discussions. However, most studies of automated cognitive analysis focus on improving the accuracy and reliability of the classifiers. They ignored that another purpose of applying machine learning techniques in educational research should be to pinpoint research bias that scholars neither intended to nor can have found without computer support. This session will present the example of ‘research bias’ discovered from both manual and automated classification of cognitive phases, provoking scholars to rethink and improve the conflicting part in the taxonomies of cognitive presence under MOOC context.
The manual-classification rubric that used to label discussion messages of a target MOOC combines Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s [2] scheme with Park’s [6] revised version. The rubric describes four phases of cognitive presence (i.e. triggering event, exploration, integration and resolution), and indicators of each phase in online discussions. We reported the average inter-rater reliability between two human raters achieved 95.4% agreement (N = 1002) with a Cohen’s weighted kappa of 0.96. Interestingly, we found the average inter-rater reliability decreased to 80.1% after increasing the size of data samples (N = 1918) and the number of human raters to three. After training the automated classifiers to predict phases of cognitive presence, the confusion matrix implies that most of the disagreements between computer raters occurred between adjacent phases of cognitive presence. The disagreements between human raters also have the same problems. We assume the additional categories may exist between cognitive phases in such MOOC discussion messages. These details will be discussed during the presentation.
References
[1] D. Garrison, T. Anderson, and W. Archer, “Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education,” Internet High. Educ., vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 87–105, 1999.
[2] D. Garrison, T. Anderson, and W. Archer, “Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education,” Am. J. Distance Educ., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 7–23, 2001.
[3] V. Kovanović, S. Joksimović, D. Gašević, and M. Hatala, “Automated cognitive presence detection in online discussion transcripts,” in Automated cognitive presence detection in online discussion transcripts’ CEUR Workshop Proceedings (vol. 1137), 2014.
[4] V. Kovanović et al., “Towards automated content analysis of discussion transcripts,” Proc. Sixth Int. Conf. Learn. Anal. Knowl. - LAK ’16, pp. 15–24, 2016.
[5] E. Farrow, J. Moore, and D. Gasevic, “Analysing discussion forum data: a replication study avoiding data contamination,” 9th Int. Learn. Anal. Knowl. Conf., no. March, 2019.
[6] C. Park, “Replicating the Use of a Cognitive Presence Measurement Tool,” J. Interact. Online Learn., vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 140–155, 2009
Our student today, your student tomorrow
Get PDFChanges in compulsory NZC education requirements to be implements from 2020 will see a change in the technological knowledge, experiences and approaches students will have developed and used in their learning throughout their primary and senior school years.
Additionally some schools are using an education models that differ greatly from the more traditional structure and are enabling learners to be more self-directed, autonomous and curious.
What are the impacts on this on teaching practice? On achievement? On learners?
How could it or should it effect Tertiary education
Peppy: A virtual reality environment for exploring the principles of polypeptide structure
Get PDFScience students are traditionally taught protein structure and function through textbook pictures and/or physical model building. This is not effective for most students because conceiving large, complex three-dimensional chemicals structure and dynamic molecular interactions requires a very high degree of abstract thought, imagination and extrapolation. It is intuitively reasonable to believe that a virtual reality approach would aid appreciation of nanoscale molecular structure, function and dynamics.
I will describe the Virtual Reality (VR) tool, “Peppy” (1), that we have developed for exploring the molecular forces which drive protein secondary structure. Peppy allows students to build, visualise and manipulate polypeptides within the six degrees of freedom that characterises the VR environment. Peppy not only recreates traditional secondary structures dependent on hydrogen- bonding in a generic peptide backbone, it also permits students to insert any and all of the 20 amino acids and to examine the effect of the shapes and electrostatic forces of these on secondary structure. The highly extrapolative environment created by Peppy is extended with features that encourage student engagement, such as a selfie camera, interactive Ramachandran plot, and even features to emphasise the dynamics of a vibrant macromolecular structure. Being able to physically and directly grab and manipulate the atoms and angles with the virtual hand enhances the connection of students with the molecules and results in an exploration experience unmatched by traditional 3D visualisation software.
I will also describe the testing and iterative improvement of Peppy during deployment to large undergraduate classes at the University of Sydney, which boasts the Immersive Learning Lab, with 26 VR (Oculus Rift) headsets. Remarkably, even students with no prior VR experience are able to interact with Peppy in an engaged and meaningful way within just 10 minutes and, after less than an hour many are able to build highly complex multi-peptide structures such as β-barrels or experiment with long peptides containing a variety of side chains and disulphide bonds. The experience resonates with the students well after the session, as evidenced by their reflections and follow-up questions regarding the physics of the simulation and ideas for extension of the software
Containerization: Practical infrastructure and accessibility efficiency for the Virtual Learning Environment
Get PDFContainerization: Practical infrastructure and accessibility efficiency for the Virtual Learning Environment
Context and motivation:
Containers are transforming modern application infrastructure, providing advantages for accessibility and allow many instances of existing legacy applications to be run at the same time on the latest operating systems. This can implement an ideal virtual learning environment which offers a dynamic learning space where instructors upload activities and resources to enhance learning. The goal is to provide a structured learning environment suited to both the student and the instructor, where materials are easily accessed, and that many files can be transferred at one time. The system should cope with the demands of many students occupying the same virtual learning space, providing each student with individual learning experiences. There are challenges when instructors attempt to adapt the learning environment to meet the learning objectives. Technology barriers to the education provider, primarily in the form of high cost of technology infrastructure requirements need to be overcome before widespread adoption of a virtual learning environment is seen. The potential to overcome these barriers through the application of containerisation provides the motivation behind this presentation (Katz & Council of Independent, 2016; Puvaneswary & Siew Hwa, 2019).
What will be demonstrated in this presentation?
The use of containers provides the ability to supply many instances of the same application running on a single machine. Each instance is isolated, along with any associated dependencies, allowing efficient utilisation of system resources, such as processing and memory. The presentation will demonstrate how many instances of the same application can be activated and the resource advantages gained. The presentation will show a system that has been used to provide a complex structured virtual learning environment to level 7 students and discuss how the system was utilised to provide a positive, individualised learning experience to the students. Security and confidentiality is maintained within each containerized instance. The presentation will show how the system can be configured to be self-healing, respond to scheduling, and to automatically restart single instances as required.
The implications for future practice
The presentation will show how the advantages of containerization can be integrated at many levels of the virtual learning environment, providing many separate and individual instances of the same application. The number of instances can be easily adjusted as required, and resources are automatically allocated, reducing support overhead and cost of infrastructure. The implications are that each instance can provide a unique experience to each student, whilst reducing the workload of the instructor, and minimizing the cost to the education provider.
References
Katz, P. M., & Council of Independent, C. (2016). High-Tech or High-Touch? Online Learning and Independent Higher Education. Innovations in Teaching and Learning. Research Brief 5: Council of Independent Colleges. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED569215&site=eds-live
Puvaneswary, M., & Siew Hwa, Y. (2019). Navigating the Shortcomings of Virtual Learning Environments Via Social Media. International Journal of Virtual and Personal Learning Environments (IJVPLE), 9(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJVPLE.2019070101
 
Inconvenient Truths About Learner Agency
Get PDFFormal education, in all its guises, faces some significant challenges to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world where personal access to information and the capacity to learn has never been easier. Education is a an inherently conservative undertaking, slow to give up traditional and outmoded curricula, methods and policies, based on folklore for evidence-based practice and new realities. For some areas of educational endeavour, notably higher education, the commodification of what is called learning has diminished the role of pedagogy for pragmatism.
This presentation explores the relevance of learner agency and its offspring, heutagogy or self-determined learning, as a modern pedagogy for the digital age. It will then issue some challenges for educators and educational policy makers in adopting innovative, evidence-based practices
Interface Xperience: Redefining UI/UX design from the perspective of the Santiago school of cognition
No full textDigital technology has proven to enhance learning outcomes across educational sectors and contexts, yet critical challenges remain, notably: minimising the decay of digital interventions over time; and, achieving widespread learning outcomes in diverse, multicultural and complex settings (Aguayo, 2016; Dunn & Marinetti, 2008; Hennessy et al., 2019). One ambitious solution to these challenges may lie in a theoretical concept coming from biology called ‘autopoiesis’. Autopoiesis, literally meaning self-making, defines living organisms as self-organising units capable of adapting to unpredictable changes in their environments while maintaining internal coherence over time (Maturana & Varela, 1980). The Santiago school of cognition (Luisi, 2016), founded on the concept of autopoiesis, considers this adaptive capacity of living organisms towards their environment as an ‘intelligent’ and ‘cognitive’ process. But most importantly, it establishes that human experience and cognition are unique to every individual and context (Thompson, 2007). This has profound epistemological consequences when designing digital technology in education, as the dominant ‘one solution fits all’ paradigm becomes invalid; on the contrary, digital technology and their associated educational processes on learners ought to provide as many (intelligent) solutions as individuals and contexts there are (Aguayo, 2018, 2019). Hence, from the perspective of the Santiago school, the notion of ‘user experience design’ (UX design) is inadequate.
Based on the above, Aguayo (2018) proposes that digital technology can be embedded with autopoietic properties found in living systems during the design of the ‘user interface’ (UI design), potentially creating ‘intelligent’ technology-enhanced learning tools, platforms, affordances, experiences and/or systems that can, in theory, self-adapt to changing conditions and socio-culturally different learners over time. This means that during the process of creating digital technology tools and affordances – or ‘systems’, the focus should be on developing adaptable and flexible interfaces that can actively facilitate the learning process and learning experience on users – a process termed here as ‘interface experience design’ or IX design. Such an epistemological view of technology-enhanced learning design becomes important given that learners bring into the learning process complex and unpredictable socio-cultural and emotional backpacks that determine their own learning experience in unique ways. Ultimately, the aim behind the notion of IX design is to promote a more efficient and adaptable type of design, development and use of technology-enhanced learning systems over time. In this session, the underlying theoretical and conceptual arguments from the Santiago school of cognition for reconsidering UI/UX design in technology-enhanced learning will be introduced and explored in relation to promoting adaptable and long-lasting meaningful learning processes on diverse audiences
Teacher and student experiences in learning: Google Education Apps
Get PDFAs new digital technologies increasing become standard in tertiary education context, tertiary institutes are tailoring courses to a much more diverse population ranging over wide geographical areas (Heggart & Yoo, 2018; Owayid & Uden, 2014). The use of online technologies, together with compatible digital devices, enables users to access course content and resources from any location at anytime (Ding, Xiong, & Liu, 2015). To account for changes in educational provision, changes to teaching and learning will occur too as institutes increasingly offer online or blended programmes. At Foundation Level 3 face-to-face lectures and tutorials were the main modes of delivery. However, with the adoption of Google Classroom, different opportunities for teaching and learning presented themselves, especially since all teaching and learning resources are accessible online.
The study arises as the organisations use of Google Classroom (GC) as its learning management system (LMS) and the wider Google Suite for Educations (G-Suite) Applications (Apps) had recently been introduced to a range of Foundation Level courses across the regions. The transition from traditional classroom delivery with printed materials to a blended environment, combining face-to-face with online materials, created an ideal opportunity to investigate participants’ learning experiences. In addition, the Foundation Level 3 course offered a student cohort with diverse G-Suite experience, learning needs, digital literacy skills, experience and confidence. This provided the opportunity to investigate benefits and challenges for teachers and students when introduced to a new teaching and learning environment.
The key aim of the research was to; Examine how Foundation Level 3 students’ and teachers’ experience learning with the newly introduced Google Classroom. The methodology adopted an interpretivist paradigm and incorporated the use of a mixed method design of student surveys and focus group interviews together with individual staff interviews. The findings indicated that the integration of G-Suite Apps to a blended learning environment led to an increase in communication and collaboration for all participants. Students identified increased autonomy when accessing and retrieving digital materials which led to a more self-directed learning approach. Teachers felt their practice had changed as course assessments were designed to maximise the functionality of the different G-Suite Apps. Managing and tracking students online was also an easy and efficient use of time. The research indicated the importance of digital literacy skills for all participants which were closely linked to academic performance. The study helped to reflect on current practices to gain a deeper understanding, so we, as educators, are able to better shape pedagogical practice and enhance students’ learning experiences. A brief overview of the benefits, challenges and recommendations gained from the study will be presented.
References
Ding, J., Xiong, C., & Liu, H. (2015). Construction of a digital learning environment based on cloud computing. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(6), 1367-1377. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12208
Heggart, K. R., & Yoo, J. (2018). Getting the most from Google Classroom: A pedagogical framework for tertiary educators. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43(3). http://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2018v43n3.9
Owayid, A. M., & Uden, L. (2014). The usage of Google Apps services in Higher Education. Communication in Computer and Information Science, 96-104. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10671-7_
Enhancing student retention rates on open non-formal online language learning courses
Get PDFOpen non-formal online courses (Rha, 2018) are becoming increasingly popular as a self-paced option for learners. These courses are often hosted by commercial platforms where teachers and course creators develop and market courses to students across the globe. The numbers of students enrolled on these kinds of courses is hard to estimate but figures from providers do indicate the numbers are significant. For example, the Udemy course provider (https://www.udemy.com) states that as of October 2019 it has over 30 million students learning on 50,000 courses. However, the attrition rates for such courses, similar to other online options such as MOOCs, can be high (Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua & Simpson, 2018). In this presentation two teacher-researchers reflect on and analyse their experience of creating open non-formal online courses for English language learners, and go on to suggest several practical techniques to decrease the number of students that may drop out. The theoretical framework for this paper is that of exploratory practice (Allwright, 2003). This is an approach to teacher development in which teachers collect information on their courses and then try to use that data to reflect on their practice and improve conditions for learning. The two sources of data are the meta analytics supplied by Udemy for every course and surveys from university students who were asked to evaluate different types of video. These two sources of data were analysed using a two-step coding approach (Miles, Huberman & Saldana, 2014) in which codes are assigned and then grouped together based on emergent themes. In the presentation, firstly, the wider reasons why online students drop out, such as insufficient support (Simpson, 2017) or the impact of cognitive overload (Sweller, Ayres & Kalyuga, 2011), are discussed and several ways are suggested to get around these issues. Secondly, various principles of instructional design such as keeping lessons consistent but variable, relevant, and divided into manageable chunks are recommended (Lehman & Conceição, 2014). Finally, a number of ways that videos can be made more engaging are shown (Mayer, 2017), especially focusing on how a talking head can be best portrayed in order to give the clearest information and develop a more personalised teacher presence (Garrison, 2011). Although the data and analysis are focused on open non-formal online courses the findings and discussion are of relevance to other forms of online instruction and multimedia learning.
References
Allwright, D. (2003). Exploratory practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching.
Language Teaching Research, 7(2),113-141. https//doi.org/10.1191/1362168803lr118oa
Garrison, D. R. (2011). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. (2nd ed.). New
York, NY: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203166093
Lehman, R., & Conceição, C. (2014). Motivating and retaining online students. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-
Bass.
Mayer, R. E. (2017). Using multimedia for e-learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 33, 403-
https//doi.org/10.1111/jcal/12197
Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M., & Saldana, J. (2014). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook.
London: Sage.
Rha, H.M. (2018). A study on the classification of online education types and development of quality
management indicators for lifelong vocational skills development. In T. Bastiaens et al.
(Eds.). Proceedings of EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology (pp. 759-
763). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education
(AACE). Retrieved from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/184274.
Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, A., & Simpson, O. (2018). Developing student support for open and distance
learning: The EMPOWER project. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1(9), 1–10,
https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.470
Simpson, O. (2017). Innovations in distance education student support: What are the chances? In: G.
Ubachs, L., Konings, & M. Brown (Eds.). The Envisioning Report for Empowering Universities (pp.
52-55). Available from: https://empower. eadtu.eu/images/report/The_Envisioning_Report_ for_
Empowering_ Universities _ 1st_ edition_2017.pdf
Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive load theory. New York, NY: Springer
Introducing Immersive Reality into the Journalism Curriculum
Get PDFFollowing the introduction of the Google Cardboard virtual reality (VR) head mounted display (HMD) in 2014, mainstream journalism began exploring the potential of VR to transform news storytelling as an immersive experience (Lalwani, 2015; Somaiya, 2015). However, unlike the transformative impact of social media on journalism and journalism education (Mulrennan, 2017), VR has taken several years for this to filter into the curriculum of journalism higher education. AUT’s journalism programme includes a final semester, capstone, assessment in which students produce a piece of long-form immersive journalism that provides the opportunity to embed VR storytelling as an authentic immersive experience. To address this we created a collaborative curriculum design team in 2019 to design a workshop (Sissons & Cochrane, 2019) to introduce journalism students to the potential of VR to explore and create an immersive journalism experience. We used a design based research methodology (McKenney & Reeves, 2019) to structure the curriculum design process into four phases: initial analysis and exploration, development of a prototype curriculum intervention, evaluation and redesign of the intervention, and dissemination of identified design principles and findings. Meeting weekly the design team brainstormed a workshop that mapped the affordances of mobile XR to a real world project, and created a simple demonstration XR environment (https://seekbeak.com/v/kvPq47DpjAw). We founded the workshop design upon the principles of heutagogy (Blaschke & Hase, 2019), as the principles of heutagogy map closely to the core journalism graduate profile outcomes (Cochrane, Sissons, & Mulrennan, 2017). In this workshop students worked in teams to film and compile an interactive experience based on the University’s Journalism Media Centre, creating an interactive tour using SeekBeak (https://seekbeak.com). Using AUTEC ethics processes we obtained informed consent from the participating students for a feedback survey that will inform the second phase redesign of the curriculum design for 2020. Anonymous post-workshop student feedback survey responses, with a 78% return rate (https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-5SMVCVSJ7/) were very positive. We believe this collaborative curriculum design approach provides a simple model that can be utilised in other higher education discipline contexts.
References
Blaschke, L. M., & Hase, S. (2019). Heutagogy and digital media networks: Setting students on the path to lifelong learning. Pacific Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, 1(1), 1-14. doi:https://doi.org/10.24135/pjtel.v1i1.1
Cochrane, T., Sissons, H., & Mulrennan, D. (2017). Mainstreaming Mobile Learning in Journalism Education. In H. Crompton & J. Traxler (Eds.), Mobile Learning in Higher Education: Challenges in Context (pp. 19-30). New York: Routledge.
Lalwani, M. (2015). ABC News introduces VR initiative with 360-degree tour of Syria. Retrieved from http://www.engadget.com/2015/09/17/abc-news-introduces-vr-initiative-with-360-degree-tour-of-syria/
McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. (2019). Conducting educational design research (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Mulrennan, D. (2017). Mobile Social Media and the News: Where Heutagogy Enables Journalism Education. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, OnlineFirst(0), 1-12. doi:10.1177/1077695817720762
Sissons, H., & Cochrane, T. (2019). Newsroom Production: XRJournalism Workshop. Retrieved from https://tinyurl.com/XRJournalism
Somaiya, R. (2015, 20 October 2015). The Times partners with Google on virtual reality project. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/21/business/media/the-times-partners-with-google-on-virtual-reality-project.html?smid=tw-nytimestech&smtyp=cur&_r=