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Interview by Derek Morrison, Associate Head of e-Learning at the Higher Education Academy, with Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, USA on 7 September 2009 in Manchester, UK, prior to Michael's keynote speech at the 2009 ALT Conference.
No full textEvaluating learning designs through the formal representation of learning patterns. Powerpoint presentation
No full textOpen design is an intriguing concept for education, because the development of pedagogy has never operated in this way before. With the opportunity now to share ideas and designs through digital representations several projects have set out to capture pedagogy through representation in the form of 'learning patterns', modelled mostly on architectural patterns, as 'solutions' to a 'problem' in a 'context'. The paper will report on initial attempts to use learning patterns to evaluate the pedagogy embedded in a learning design sequence. To what extent can they be described in terms of formal computational metrics for the quality of a learning design, so that a learning design system could provide feedback to users
Technology enhanced learning in 21st century mass higher education. Aspects of design, practice and strategy for a necessary step change
Get PDFModern day mass higher education presents challenges for both learners and teachers. Whilst digital resources, Web 2.0 technologies and online connectivity can add significantly to the learning opportunities of 21st century students, many cross programme Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) provisions remain collections of somewhat disconnected and basic materials. In its early development, organised e-learning has generally been the province of specialist programmes and individuals championing the new technologies. However along with the adoption of technology enhanced learning, there is a growing need to develop, design and embed more fundamental and far reaching strategic approaches that embrace the core of traditional university learning and teaching programmes. This paper focuses upon a large undergraduate core module and discusses the implications of a practice based case study which explored how traditional campus based undergraduate learning and teaching could be redesigned and enhanced by the addition of online technology and e-pedagogy. It considers aspects of both pedagogical and technological design and examines how a VLE can support learners and teaching teams. Findings showed that students were extremely positive about the mix of onsite and online learning. They saw anytime, anywhere access as fundamental, and valued the flexible access and collaborative opportunities offered by Web 2.0 and mobile resources. Considerable operational benefits arose in supporting teaching teams and student marks increased. Drawing upon lessons learned from practice, and feedback gained from students and teachers, the paper examines how the approach may inform future curriculum delivery and programme specification. It considers the contribution that blended learning may make in addressing the needs of 21st century learners in mass higher education, and reflects on the implications of the case study in terms of aspects of design, practice and strategy
"In dreams begins responsibility" - choice, evidence, and change. Conference Introduction and Abstracts, 16th International Conference, 8-10 September, Manchester, UK
Get PDFBibliography of benchmarking e-learning version 1
Get PDFThis version of the bibliography has been compiled as part of the work to create an overarching analysis of the methodologies used and considered in the Higher Education Academy/JISC Benchmarking of e-Learning Programme and related activities. It is hoped that future versions will more fully cover activities in other countries and sectors
Lives in transition through community it: Biographical narratives from the IT "hub" on a large estate with multiple deprivation indices
Get PDFLittle is really known about the experiences of people who use community IT centres, nor how community IT centres really impact on social inclusion. A wide review reveals that voices of these learners are largely absent from the research literature. In policy statements and evaluation reports learner voices are often synthesised from analyses of the experiences of centre managers and selectively presented for rhetorical purposes. However, one place where vernacular IT literacy practices involving digital and new technology are developed, exercised and valued, and where they benefit from, and contribute to, the development of social capital (McClenaghan 2000: 566) is the community IT centre. This paper addresses the question: what is the lived experience of these people who use this urban community IT centre, co-located in a city council property with other agencies, on a large housing estate where there are multiple indices of exclusion. The paper reports the first findings of a detailed, qualitative study using an innovative methodology and analytical framework enabling close analysis from multiple perspectives. Narrative expression is closest to people’s lived experience of conscious concerns and also less conscious cultural processes (Chamberlayne, Bornat, et al. 2004). Mathie and Cunningham (2003) explicitly link Appreciative Inquiry and Biographical narrative methods in a model of Asset-based community development (ABCD). Eleven extensive biographic-narrative interpretive interviews and two Appreciative inquiry focus groups were conducted. The life stories and focus groups were analysed using “third generation Activity theory”. Engeström (2001: 133) identifies three generations in the evolution of activity theory. The first generation characterised by mediation, the second by community. Now, “The third generation of activity theory needs to develop conceptual tools to understand dialogue, multiple perspectives, and networks of interacting activity systems.” In this respect, the third space theories of Homi Bhabha (2004) are particularly productive in advancing activity theory for community development education. Third generation activity theory takes as its minimum unit of analysis the intersecting space – the third space – between (any) two or more activity systems, say community development learning on the one hand and employer-led demand-driven funding models on the other. A community IT centre is a cultural-historical activity system: mediated, multi-voiced, enduring, conflicted and transformative. It is the highly contextualised culture of the “site of engagement” (Scollon 2001) where formal and informal work and learning opportunities co-exist, that is the salient feature of a community IT centre. The narratives suggest six mediating rule sets: affect, family, community, education, employment, and IT practice. Affective factors include, e.g. defeat, happiness, love, pride. Family embraces participants’ home-life, children and child-care, cohabitants, family members, personal finance, and partner(s). Community incorporates formal and informal structures and activities such as community organisations, volunteering, and also crime, drugs, prison, familarity and strangers. Education, interestingly, appears as strongly linked to learning as to formal qualifications. Employment is often unrelated to accreditation, more often related to informal learning or networks; people occasionally achieve identity-affirming employment but often work to survive. IT practices are widely and deeply embedded, ranging from using email and attachments through digital image, music and video editing; there is high awareness, and moderate use, of social networking sites. These rule-sets are worked through complex personal histories, where values and identities illuminate a third space. People make meaning and find reward through social interaction mediated by the presence and use of community computing facilities for educational and non educational purposes. But, community and policy are awkwardly articulated. Correlation between education, IT centres, and employment is unclear. Conceiving of IT as primarily for education and employment fails to value other equally important computer-mediated personal/ social/ civic interaction. Education may have replaced industrial policy as the means to improve the economy (Esland 1996), and the Internet is a fundamental aspect of citizenship, but benefits are obscured by a narrow focus on work-force attachment (Levitas, 1999), learning targets and productivity (Coffield, 2006). The problem facing the modern world may not be work-force attachment but that, “… community is missing” (Ellis and Scott 2003: 262). Where vernacular IT practices are valued and developed, they may contribute to the development of social capital. Traumatic experiences of school lead to reluctance to engage with learning impacting adversely on civic participation. This paper offers a suggestion that community IT centres might be decoupled from educational policy and funding. Target-driven models are counter-productive. Adopting assisted voluntarism, social enterprise and participatory governance within a local framework of socially-owned facilities and multi-agency co-operation might help reconnect lived experience with meaningful, community-based social capital development leading to increased, beneficial civic participation
Talis launches angel fund for Open Education at Association for Learning Technology’s September conference
Get PDFVirtual learning environments – help or hindrance for the ‘disengaged’ student?
Get PDFThe introduction of virtual learning environments (VLEs) has been regarded by some as a panacea for many of the problems in today’s mass numbers modular higher education system. This paper demonstrates that VLEs can help or hinder student engagement and performance, and that they should be adapted to the different types of learner. A project is described that aimed to investigate whether the introduction of a VLE can assist ‘disengaged’ students, drawing on click count tracking data and student performance. The project took place in the context of two very large undergraduate modules (850 and 567 students) in a Business School of a new university in the UK. In an adaptation of a model of learner engagement in Web-enhanced environments, four distinct learner types have emerged: model, traditionalist, geek and disengaged. There was evidence that use of the VLE exacerbated, rather than moderated, the differences between these learner types