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Observations of expert communicators in immersive virtual worlds: implications for synchronous discussion
Get PDFWith the increased interest in using Immersive Virtual Worlds (IVWs) such as Second Life to augment and amplify teaching or to develop communities of practice, the author engaged graduate students, all current K‐12 teachers, in a qualitative study to examine their attitudes about communicating for the first time in a virtual setting represented by an interactive avatar. This study sought to determine if students were able to discern degrees of expertise in other avatars by providing encounters with guests who had a significant amount of experience navigating in a virtual world. The study examined Second Life as a synchronous discussion tool for a higher education setting and finds it lacking in some respects, but is able to make recommendations about training instructors to exhibit behaviours that may inspire confidence while leading a class in such a setting
Modernity, mobility and the digital divides
Get PDFThe phrase ‘digital divide’ has been crucial over the last ten years in focusing attention and resources on the issues of access to and use of ICT, including e-learning, by a succession of excluded and marginal individuals and communities. This paper argues however that this is now a dangerously simplistic notion, especially in societies characterised by the postmodernity that has been catalysed by increasing mobility. The paper provides an introduction to some of the ideas and issues
Towards a user oriented analytical approach to learning design
Get PDFThe London Pedagogy Planner (LPP) is a prototype for a collaborative online planning and design tool that supports lecturers in developing, analysing and sharing learning designs. The tool is based on a developing model of the components involved in learning design and the critical relationships between them. As a decision tool it makes the pedagogical design explicit as an output from the process, capturing it for testing, redesign, reuse and adaptation by the originator, or by others. The aim is to test the extent to which we can engage lecturers in reflecting on learning design, and make them part of the educational community that discovers how best to use technology‐enhanced learning. This paper describes the development of LPP, presents pedagogical benefits of visual representations of learning designs and proposes an analytical approach to learning design based on these visual representations. The analytical approach is illustrated based on an initial evaluation with a small group of lecturers from two partner institutions
Video of Hans Rosling's Keynote speech at ALT-C 2008, Leeds
No full textVideo of Hans Rosling's Keynote speech at ALT-C 2008, Leed
An open learner model for trainee pilots
Get PDFThis paper investigates the potential for simple open learner models for highly motivated, independent learners, using the example of trainee pilots. In particular we consider whether such users access their learner model to help them identify their current knowledge level, areas of difficulty and specific misconceptions, to help them plan their immediate learning activities; and whether they find a longer‐term planning aid useful. The Flight Club open learner model was deployed in a UK flight school over four weeks. Results suggest that motivated users such as trainee pilots will use a system with a simple open learner model, and are interested in consulting their learner model information both to facilitate planning over time, and to understand their current knowledge state. We discuss the extent to which our findings may be relevant to learners in other contexts
Web based lecture technologies: blurring the boundaries between face to face and distance learning
Get PDFWeb based lecture technologies (WBLT) have gained popularity amongst universities in Australia as a tool for delivering lecture recordings to students in close to real time. This paper reports on a selection of results from a larger research project investigating the impact of WBLT on teaching and learning. Results show that while staff see the advantages for external students, they question the extent to which these advantages apply to internal students. In contrast both cohorts of students were positive about the benefits of the technologies for their learning and they adopted similar strategies for their use. With the help of other technologies, some external students and staff even found WBLT useful for fostering communication between internal and external students. As such, while the traditional boundary between internal and external students seems to remain for some staff, students seem to find the boundary much less clear
Demystifying the educational benefits of different gaming genres
Get PDFAs research continues into the use of computer games for educational purposes, educators still appear reluctant to incorporate them into their teaching. One contributing factor to this reluctance is the lack of information regarding the benefits offered by the different games available today. These differences appear to have been largely overlooked by the academic community, resulting in a lack of information being made available to both the academic and education communities alike. Without this information, educators will find it difficult to determine whether a game will suit their teaching needs, and will continue to avoid using them. This paper studies a selection of games from several different genres, assessing each one in its ability to fulfil a set of previously identified requirements for a good educational resource. The results of the investigation showed that there were indeed strong differences between the genres, allowing for some suggestions to be made regarding their use in education, as well as leaving room for some interesting future work
Maintaining, changing and crossing contexts: an activity theoretic reinterpretation of mobile learning
Get PDFAlthough mobile learning is a popular topic in current research, it is not well conceptualized. Many researchers rely on under‐theorized conceptions of the topic, and those who have tried to refine the ideas involved have found this to be complex and difficult. In this paper a new interpretation of the concept ‘mobile learning’ is offered, drawing on the tradition of activity theory. The interpretation focuses on the continuity of learning activities that take place in multiple contexts, which are embodied as the combination of the physical and social setting of the learning activities. The paper starts by sketching the current research context and then outlines the theoretical tradition within which the interpretation of ‘mobile learning’ is located. Then the new interpretation is offered and the concepts are applied to case studies to illustrate how this new understanding develops current thinking in the area. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for research of adopting such a perspective
The cathedral and the bazaar of e-repository development: encouraging community engagement with moving pictures and sound
Get PDFThis paper offers an insight into the development, use and governance of e‐repositories for learning and teaching, illustrated by Eric Raymond's bazaar and cathedral analogies and by a comparison of collection strategies that focus on content coverage or on the needs of users. It addresses in particular the processes that encourage and achieve community engagement. This insight is illustrated by one particular e‐repository, the Education Media On‐Line (EMOL) service. This paper draws analogies between the bazaar approach for open source software development and its possibilities for developing e‐repositories for learning and teaching. It suggests in particular that the development, use and evaluation of online moving pictures and sound objects for learning and teaching can benefit greatly from the community engagement lessons provided by the development, use and evaluation of open source software. Such lessons can be underpinned by experience in the area of learning resource collections, where repositories have been classified as ‘collections‐based’ or ‘user‐based’. Lessons from the open source movement may inform the development of e‐repositories such as EMOL in the future