Pacific Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning
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Creating blended learning experiences requires more than digital skills: Developing staff skills in the effective use of technology to enhance student learning
No full textWith growing diversity and larger numbers of enrolled students in classes, online learning can open up new possibilities in New Zealand’s tertiary institutions to improve teaching and enhance students’ learning. Tertiary institutions have reacted with changed expectations about pedagogical approaches and practices, by, for example, integrating more online learning technologies, and by reconsidering the course design and learning environment (Conole, 2016; Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada & Freeman, 2015). Consequently, teachers increasingly teach online as part of a course and need to engage large number of students with a broad range of skills and knowledge, including many who are first in their family to learn formally at tertiary level.
Teachers may work with certain areas of online technologies and digital literacies, for example deposit information online for students to read, but they often do not feel confident to facilitate active learning (Ako & Synapsys, 2018; Boelens, de Wever & Voet, 2017) and to offer tasks that aim to engage students collaboratively online. Kirkwood (2014) points out that teachers question how an online tool can be used but may consider less the rationale for the use of a certain pedagogical strategy for which a tool could be used. Digital literacies are more than gaining isolated technological skills (Johnson et al., 2015) as this presentation will share, based on the findings of a collaboration with two teachers in a first-year undergraduate course in Education. In the presentation, we will discuss recommendations for sustainable teacher development that enable blended learning design with opportunities for students to actively create instead of consuming information and that is likely to enhance their experiences of blended learning. The recommendations include underpinning skills and areas such as supporting learning for Māori and non-Māori students by using online affordances for pedagogical practices to, for example, integrate formative feedback, self-assessment, foster active learning online and independent learning.
References
Ako Aotearoa & Synapsys (2018). Technology in learning: Benchmarking and developing sector capability. Wellington, New Zealand: Ako Aotearoa
Boelens, R., De Wever, B., & Voet, M. (2017). Four key challenges to the design of blended learning: A systematic literature review. Educational Research Review, 22, 1–18. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2017.06.001
Conole, G. (2016). Theoretical underpinnings of learning design. In J. Dalziel (Ed.), Learning design: Conceptualizing a framework for teaching and learning online (pp. 42–62). New York, NY: Routledge.
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon report: 2015 Higher education edition. Austin, TX: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2015-higher-education-edition/
Kirkwood, A. (2014). Teaching and learning with technology in higher education: Blended and distance education needs ‘joined-up thinking’ rather than technological determinism. Open Learning, 29(3), 206–221
Digital Escape Game: Breaking out of a mathematical medley
Get PDFThe Escape Room phenomena began in Japan in 2007. The premise of an Escape Room is that ‘players’ are locked inside a room and, in order to escape, they must solve a range of puzzles, riddles, and open mechanisms and locks inside a given timeframe. While the educational affordances of an escape room have been and continue to be explored (see for example Brown, Darby & Coronel, 2019) the grandeur and physical complexities required to set up an escape room mean than it is not a sustainable option for the average classroom teacher or smaller tertiary courses.
The Escape Game, however, is played on a smaller scale with portable (often mostly printable) resources with players aiming to either break into something (a toolbox for example) by solving riddles, puzzles and opening locks within a given timeframe. The logistical ease of set up and iterability mean that the escape game format is becoming increasingly popular across all sectors of education—from young primary school learners to tertiary tauira (see for example Yachin, & Barak, 2019).
A successful example of the escape game movement in education is Breakout EDU (see for example Detwiler, Jacobson, & O’Brien, 2018). In addition to being a platform that provides resources to create your own and use other educator-made physical breakout games, Breakout EDU also provide members with a digital escape game creator and online repository. It was the Breakout EDU digital game format that was used as the mediating artefact in this case study.
A digital escape game, Mathematical Medley, was created for educators undertaking a postgraduate mathematics education course. The game was embedded into the course’s learning management system and activated at a certain time point for tauira to complete in groups or individually (as they chose). The purpose of the study was to explore how a digital escape game might promote the learning of mathematical content (subject knowledge); and how a digital escape game might enable the use and development of key competencies and mathematical processes. An overview of the escape game, purpose, findings and implications of using the mediating artefact will be shared during the presentation of this case study
A Model for Developing a SOTEL Research Cluster: MESH360
Get PDFThis case study critically reflects upon the development of a scholarship of technology enhanced learning (SOTEL) research cluster in clinical sciences higher education. The research cluster has grown from an initial community of practice established in 2015 in the context of Paramedicine education (Cochrane, Cook, Aiello, Harrison, & Aguayo, 2016), to a collaborative transdisciplinary research cluster that now encompasses: the School of Clinical Sciences, Journalism, the Centre for Teaching And Learning, the AppLAB, and international research partners (Cochrane, 2019; Cochrane et al., 2018). The MESH360 research cluster (initially standing for the Multiple Environment Simulation VR Hub, but now covering the growing body of immersive reality enhanced learning projects) focuses upon the common domain of the exploration of immersive reality to enhance higher education to develop student creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving capabilities.
The research cluster is built upon the shared ontology, epistemology, and research methodology of the wider SOTEL research cluster hub (https://sotel.nz/about-the-cluster/). We established an ecology of resources to support the research cluster (Cochrane & Narayan, 2018), and encourage open educational practice via social media, publishing in open access channels, and regular project showcases. Outcomes from the MESH360 research cluster include: innovative curriculum design, journal articles, conference proceedings, 2 Vice Chancellors teaching innovation awards, a Prime Minister’s research scholarship, and award of a variety of internal project funding. The activity of the research cluster is curated in a ResearchGate Project at https://www.researchgate.net/project/MESH360 and on social media via the #MESH360 hashtag. While the activity of the MESH360 has been predominantly within the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, we are seeing wider impact into Schools within the other Faculties at the university, and potential national and international collaborations.
The SOTEL model includes the following main elements:
An online hub - The SOTEL Research Cluster https://sotel.nz/
An annual Symposium showcasing SOTEL in practice https://sotel.nz
The Pacific Journal of Educational Technology (PJTEL)
The CMALT cMOOC and the MOSOMELT cMOOC
A weekly webinar series
Brokering international TEL networks such as the ASCILITE Mobile Learning Special Interest Group
A series of TEL workshops and showcases
The presentation will outline the above elements of the SOTEL Research Cluster. We believe the MESH360 research cluster model can be applied to a wide variety of higher education domains.
References
Cochrane, T. (2019). How AUT is Designing Authentic Student Learning Experiences with Immersive Reality. Paper presented at the 2nd New Zealand Digital Campus and Blended Learning Transformation From K6 to Higher education: Immersive AR/VR, blended learning innovations and next generation learning spaces, Stamford Plaza, Auckland, New Zealand. https://tinyurl.com/SOTELprojects
Cochrane, T., Cook, S., Aiello, S., Harrison, D., & Aguayo, C. (2016, 28-30 November). Designing Virtual Reality Environments for Paramedic Education: MESH360. Paper presented at the Show Me The Learning. Proceedings ASCILITE 2016 Adelaide, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
Cochrane, T., & Narayan, V. (2018, 25-29 June, 2018). The Scholarship of Technology Enhanced Learning: Reimagining SOTL for the Social Network Age. Paper presented at the EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology 2018, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Cochrane, T., Stretton, T., Aiello, S., Britnell, S., Cook, S., & Narayan, V. (2018). Authentic Interprofessional Health Education Scenarios using Mobile VR. Research in Learning Technology, 26, 2130. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v26.2130
 
Creating H5P content for active learning
Get PDFActive learning is a popular and proven method used in contemporary educational design and practice. H5P (https://h5p.org/) facilitates easy creation of richer HTML5. Integration of H5P content within course material provides opportunities for students as learners to think critically about what they are being taught and supports the flexibility students are requesting by extending the learning environment. A variety of activities can be developed; case study scenarios, interactive technical demonstrations, 3D images with identification of regions of interest (hotspots; roll-over information; animation), as well as quiz questions in a wide variety of differing formats; fill in the blanks, image and text-based drag and drop, mark the word, interactive video and branching scenario tasks. H5P content can be easily shared across multiple learning management systems (Canvas, Moodle, and Blackboard). Learners receive comprehensive, automatic feedback and their engagement with H5P activities can be tracked by teachers
Applying a framework to document and analyze the learning design intent with learning analytics in an online course
Get PDF“ETEC 565A: Understanding Learning Analytics” was a new course offered in a Master of Educational Technology programme in UBC in January 2019. In order to support students exploring learning analytics in a more relevant way to them, the final project allows students to choose their own learning analytics adventure. This presentation will be a showcase and a reflection of learning from our final (group) project. Our group wanted to focus on learning design and learning analytics. There has been a lot of interests in learning analytics in higher education, it has been appearing in the EDUCAUSE’s Horizon report for many years as a technology to adopt. We also know that learning technologies should support the educational goals. Therefore, it is important for us to understand, how would one combine learning design with learning analytics. Our instructor guided to Lockyer, Heathcote and Dawson (2013)’s work. Their article presented “learning design as a form of documentation of pedagogical intent that can provide the context for making sense of diverse sets of analytic data” (p.1439). Lockyer et al (2013) explored using the checkpoint and process analytics as broad categories of learning analytics and how through this documentation of pedagogical intent and the related learning analytics that can be collected, could support pedagogical actions.
Our instructor has given us permission to use our course as an example to apply Lockyer et al (2013)’s framework and conduct our analysis on the course. Our group also had access to some learning analytics data ourselves, through the “Threadz” tool for analysing our discussion forum activities. For all other types of data that we did not have access to, we made comments on what the data could be used for, and if it would provide enough information to assess if the pedagogical intent was met. Comments were also made about potential data that could have been better for informing pedagogical actions but were either not possible to get or too difficult and unpractical.
In the presentation, I will share some backgrounds for the Lockyer et al (2013)’s framework for aligning learning analytics with learning design, how one could use the framework to document their own course design and identify potential learning analytics data sources or the lack of. As the framework provides teachers and designers a tool to think, plan and reflect with. I will discuss some of our group’s findings and reflections from the analysis of our own online course. Then discuss about potentials of using such framework on a more traditional face-to-face course.
As institutions and courses collect more data about their students, it is useful to have a framework to help teachers think about how they might use the learning analytics data to support their students through examining and documenting their pedagogical intents. It is also important to note what the existing data can and cannot do to support pedagogical goals