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Evaluating the impact of a Technology Toolkit delivering Web 2.0 resources to develop key 21st century skills
5/27/2013
Lisa Donaldson – D12122623
Lisa Donaldson – D12122623
Evaluating the impact of a Technology Toolkit delivering Web 2.0 resources to develop key 21st century skills
Introduction
This research proposal seeks to explore and evaluate the impact of a Technology Toolkit, developed
utilising the rapid elearning tool Captivate, and offered to a number of lecturers at the National
College of Ireland (NCI) and Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). The resource will assist lecturers in
using technology tools such as Twitter and Wikis which have specifically been chosen to assist
students develop the 21st Century skills of Communication and Collaboration. These skills are a
subset of a wider set of skills promulgated as success factors for students and as a requirement for
future economic development.
The resource will be introduced to the lecturers via an initial workshop and thereafter used online.
The skills of the lecturer and their perceptions of technology usage will be examined at discrete
points during the study to ascertain their abilities and attitudes towards the integration of
technology into classroom activities. This case study involves the implementation of one online
resource but examination will provide rich description of the impact of this on their pedagogy as well
as illustrating the efficacy of the Technology Toolkit itself. The boundary of the research and ultimate
selection of the tools to include is predicated by an initiative I have been asked to lead at NCI.
Context and Rationale
The motivation for my research in this field stems from being involved in running technical training
events for educators over the last two years across two different educational institutions. My
experience is that whilst the lecturers I’ve worked with are extremely competent within their field of
expertise, their technical skills were often lacking. This dearth of first-hand information technology
knowledge meant that these lecturers were unable to innovate and adapt their pedagogy to best
engage 21st century students.
My initial literature review highlighted many articles showing the scale of thought on the importance
of including technology education into teachers education. The Korean, Australian and American
governments support national programmes to upskill their new teachers. An Irish Times article
(2013) refers to these and other initiatives and draws the comparison to Ireland’s educational
system where our teachers are limited in their technical skills and thus our educational system lacks
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innovation and flexibility at a key time to produce students with 21 st century competencies to
stimulate economic growth in Ireland.
Technology can serve as an enabler and motivator for these 21 st century students. Pearlman (2010)
states that it is technology and new learning environments that enable 21 st century skills. This is
echoed in the report from the 21st Century Literacy Summit (2002) where they advocate that
“information and communication technologies are raising the bar on the competencies needed to
succeed in the 21st century”. Therefore it is imperative that educators are able to understand and
utilise a range of tools to complement and augment their teaching practice and to foster 21st
century abilities such as Communication, Critical Thinking, Collaboration and Creativity within their
students.
In the 21st century the pace of change, advances in technology and accumulation of information has
never been greater. At a seminar I attended in 2012 by Ferdinand Von Prondzynski, he highlighted
the fact that almost every other industry has changed dramatically since the industrial era with the
exception of teaching, which still tends to use very traditional methods of delivery. This comment
immediately rang true for me. Prensky (2001) has stated that educators may fall into the Digital
Immigrant category, White & Le Cornu (2011) have instead argued that they may be Digital Visitors.
Both theories refer to a lack of technical skills and a difference in perception of technology on the
part of lecturers in comparison to their students. A key question for me here is, is it a lack of ability,
a lack of vision or a lack of professional development that is the driver for these categorisations ? I
hope to be a position to answer this as part of this research.
Objectives
There is a rapidly growing body of literature espousing that students today need 21st century skills.
The research that I propose to conduct will identify these skills based on an examination of the
primary frameworks for 21st century skills. Furthermore, based on Churches’ Digital Taxonomy and
other seminal research, I will map the most appropriate technology tools that can help educators to
deliver these skills.
The learning resource in fulfilment of the requirements for the M.Sc. in eLearning will be based on
the findings above and provide a repository of tools and best practice methodologies to scaffold
educators learning around integrating technologies to innovate teaching practice and assist students
develop these 21st century skills. The learning resource will then be offered to a small number of
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educators at NCI and DIT and the complexities and dynamic interactions between the educator and
the resource will be observed and analysed. My aim with this exploration is to examine the impact of
introducing new digital literacies on educators’ abilities and attitudes whilst examining the efficacy of
the Technology Toolkit resource itself. This will form my research question.
I expect my findings to provide insight to a number of areas:
The ability and readiness of educators to utilise technology tools in the classroom. I’m
particularly interested to examine if the debate between Digital immigrants vs Digital natives
and it’s more recent incarnation as Digital Residents vs Visitors is realised in the course of
the study
The degree of integration of technology by the study participants as measured by the
technology integration model – LOTI by Dr Christopher Moersch (1994)
The efficacy of the resource to upskill and educate lecturers.
Methods
My research approach can be imagined as a funnel - my research starts by identifying the broad
landscape of 21st century skills and it then narrows to map pedagogically sound technology tools
which may assist with these skills. The resulting resource (technology toolkit) will then be deployed
to a chosen cohort of educators and a narrow focus will be applied to the analysis of its
implementation – an exploration of lecturers attitudes to and abilities with these new literacies. I
propose to follow case study principles believing this to be most appropriate to my research aims.
Bell (1999) states
“The case study approach is particularly suited to individual researchers because it gives an
opportunity for one aspect of a problem to be studied in some depth within a limited time
scale”
A case study methodology will allow me to focus on various interactive aspects of this one instance -
the implementation of a resource to support lecturers utilising web 2.0 tools to introduce new
literacies and mediums of communication including any barriers to its adoption. Case study research
will enable me to build a holistic description of events and activities relevant to this implementation
and perform multiple levels of analysis within this single study (Eisenhardt , 1989). These explorations
will include an evaluation of the impact of my learning resource, the technology tools it introduces,
and their impact on lecturers.
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This exploratory research will include quantitative information measuring lecturers’ skills before and
after using the resource, as well as qualitative information regarding the impact on the lecturers
experience and abilities after exposure to new mediums for communication and collaboration. The
methods used to collect this information include a workshop meeting and an initial questionnaire to
ascertain technology ability levels towards same. These technical abilities will be queried again via
questionnaire at the end of the case study. The questionnaires used will be trialled and evaluated by
a control group not part of the study prior to launch.
Furthermore, I will examine the subsequent mind-set and perceptions of the lecturers towards
utilising technology aids in the classroom through interviews and a focus group study which will be
conducted to explore issues in more depth. Dr. Christopher Moersch (1994) developed the Levels of
Technology Implementation (LoTi) scale in as an attempt to determine authentic classroom
technology use. I will use this scale to assist my understanding of the degree of technology
integration within the group based on the results of the lecturer questionnaires and interviews.
Classroom observations may also be used. These different methods capture the concept of a case
study where they are used to triangulate findings and provide rich descriptions from different angles
(Johannson, 2003). My aim is to observe and understand the impact of technology tools and gain
insight as to the existence of a digital divide with this subset rather than to generalise beyond the
boundaries of the study.
I will seek to provide a chronological narrative of events relevant to the case (Cohen et al, 2007) with rich
description and analysis to answer my research goals of understanding attitudes to and degree of integration
of technology tools within a specified group of lecturers.. The technology toolkit developed may subsequently
be used as part of another M.Sc. project to provide threshold learning for students as part of an Education
Technology MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).
The focus of the literature review for this research proposal will encompass 21 st century skills
frameworks and myriad technology tools to enable the development of an appropriate and fit for
purpose online tool. The subsequent journal article will examine more explicitly its impact on the
study participants’ attitudes and abilities and the existence or not of the digital divide.
Literature Review
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My literature review will encompass related themes: 21st century frameworks, explorations around
technologies that assist the delivery of 21st century skills, as well as lecturer perceptions and skillsets
that may inhibit the adoption of these technology tools.
21st Century Frameworks
My initial literature review encompassed a study of the primary 21 st skills frameworks. My aim was
to ascertain skills that were common across all frameworks and use these as a basis for identifying
web 2.0 tools that could assist with skills building. This had to be a priority before I could begin to
think about resource/toolkit development and examine lecturer interactions with same.
A number of frameworks have evolved which specifically outline skills that are required of 21 st
Century Students.
The Center for 21st Century Skills details the below skills as key for survival for millennial students.
Information Literacy: the ability to find useful & reliable information Collaboration: working together to share, advocate and compromise on critical issues Creativity & innovation: exploration of imagination. Refining and improving original ideas Problem Solving: experimentation of new and familiar concepts while processing
information until a solution is found Communication: the ability to properly read, write, present and comprehend ideas or
varying mediums and audiences Responsible Citizenship: demonstration of proper technology use, global awareness & moral
judgementhttp://www.skills21.org
Very similar themes appear in articles produced by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills however it
also identifies the support system required to make this a reality.
Learning and Innovation Skills: Critical Thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, innovation, contextual learning skills, the ability to use technology to develop 21st century knowledge & skills.
Information media & technology skills: information literacy, media literacy, ICT literacy Life & career skills Core subjects & 21st century themes
o Reading, arts, maths, science, foreign languages, civics, govt, economics, history & geography
http://www.p21.org
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An Australian group ATC21S led by the University of Melbourne and supported by Cisco, Intel and
Microsoft again espouses very similar skills and echoes the essentials of 21st century abilities called
for by P21 and Skills 21.
A direct comparison of these frameworks shows a remarkable alignment of thinking from groups
across the globe. Dede (2009) in his comparison of 21 st century frameworks avows P21’s framework
to be the most developed and widely accepted but cites the similarities across all. The skills common
across all frameworks are those of Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, ICT
literacy and Responsible Citizenship. It is worth noting that whilst the calls for 21st century skills have
been made in the last twenty years, Socrates alluded to these thinking skills 2000 years ago. These
are not new competences but have simply risen to prominence due to the giant leaps in technology
and communications.
Following this initial literature review, I propose to develop a resource highlighting technologies that
help to develop the 21st century skills of Communication and Collaboration. I have chosen these two
specific skills because they closely meet the requirements of the project I have been tasked to
undertake in NCI and the limited nature of this project prevents research on all identified skills. The
next task is to map to technology tools that may help to engender these skills and develop a
resource that will assist lecturers in using them, focussing not on the technology itself, but what
teachers and learners may be able to accomplish using these tools.
Technology Explorations
Based on research conducted in 2010, Lightle argues that technology use leads to the development
of 21st century skills. There is symmetry here with all my reading in the area of 21 st century
frameworks. Solomon & Schrum (2010) more specifically state that “the 21st century educator must
be a communicator, fluent in tools and technologies that enable communication and collaboration”.
This validates the importance of developing a Technology Toolkit to assist lecturers to develop these
particular skills.
Lightle’s paper, based on Andrew Churches’ work, begins to align specific technologies with Bloom’s
taxonomy and illustrates tools that can be used to generate the higher order thinking skills looked
for by the many 21st century frameworks. In a simple, yet comprehensive manner, Churches
(2007:2008) connected the verbs of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to a description of technology tools
to support the learning experience.
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Lightle introduces some of these verbs and a selection of applications that Churches advocates.
Churches wide-ranging list has personally been a voyage of discovery for me as I endeavour to
introduce technology into my classroom. The taxonomy allows educators to follow best pedagogical
practice and firstly plan for desired classroom experience then secondly choose an appropriate tool.
This article and Churches work is my starting point to connect the 21 st century skills of Collaboration,
and Communication with specific technology applications. Lightle advocates tools such as Glogster
and Prezi for communicating and presenting and Wikis and Voicethread as collaborative tools.
Potts et al list many of these same tools and discuss the rich potential for the creation of meaningful
learning environments with their use. They outline the benefits of building relevant and
collaborative experiences in the class for students that can be aligned with the skills required for the
outside workplace (2010). Pacansky-Brock concurs that the rise of technology use has changed
society to more participatory and collaborative model and that lecturers need to prepare students
for this paradigm shift (2013). She also argues that effectively integrating emerging technologies can
result in more engaged students who are active contributors to their own learning. Prezi, Twitter and
Wikis are tools specifically recommended by Pacansky-Brock to aid communication and
collaboration skills and enhance participatory learning.
Twitter as a tool is commanding much attention in our growing digital society. Dunlap and Lowenthal
write that Twitter allows students to share ideas, ask questions, and collaborate (2009). It has
proven to be particularly effective due to its persistence and commonality and has enabled the
extension of the classroom (via 140 characters) demonstrating itself to be an effective
communication medium. Its longer term potential is borne out through developing personal learning
networks which can sustain lifelong education.
Wikis have been heralded by many as a mechanism to allow rich, collaborative work among
students. Su and Beaumont (2010) identified many benefits to their use in Higher Education
including promotion of collaboration and feedback skills which in turn improved students’ abilities to
perform critical evaluation. Whilst they acknowledged some student concerns regarding privacy, this
was overcome by the potential value of the tool. Eggleston is also a proponent of the use of Wikis
and further adds that they have the ability to exercise most if not all of Bloom’s higher order thinking
skills.
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This literature review outlines just a small number of the preponderance of technology tools
available that may assist in the development of 21st Century skills. As the scope of the project will
not allow me to develop resources for all, I propose to include the following in my technology
toolkit:
Communication Skills Twitter
Collaboration Skills Wikis
The benefits of these tools are lauded in numerous publications and also align closely with the needs
identified within the NCI lecturer population by the Dean of Computing. A focus on a small number
of tools will enable the development of a rich and interactive resource which will include best
practice methodologies to roll out to my research participants.
The development and launch of the above resource will then enable me to research the reality of
the Digital Divide – the oft researched and discussed gap between the technical abilities and
perceptions of lecturers (digital immigrants) and students, the Net Generation (digital natives) which
was first outlined by Marc Prensky (2001). Will the lecturers in my study have difficulties in
assimilating the technologies, adapting their pedagogies and indeed their perceptions to integrate
these tools? Will this resource and ongoing professional development prove to be enablers? A
similar though larger scale research programme named Developing Digital Literacies is currently
being undertaken at the University of Reading by JISC due for completion in July 2013. Their baseline
report indicates that there is an ad-hoc usage of technology within the university which illustrates
the need to foster earlier, and broader, engagement with a range of technologies.
Recent Open University research debunks the idea that there is a clear cut divide between these
two populations but do agree that technology usage varies with age (2011). White and Le Cornu
propose an alternative framework of Digital Visitors and Residents to better define lecturer and
student engagement with technology. They argue for a continuum of practice rather than discrete
populations and suggest that that motivation and perceptions of usefulness and habituation within
digital settings may be a more accurate way of analysing learners and educators.
Stoerger (2009) argues that titles such as Immigrants and Natives are simplistic and in fact some
educators have been using technology for many years and have built up a considerable array of
skills. She puts forward the metaphor of a melting pot to illustrate the blending of individuals who
“speak with different technology tongues”. In fact, as we move further into the 21 st century even
Marc Prensky himself has begun to move away from the terms Immigrants and Natives to refer
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instead to Digital Wisdom which transcends generational distinctions. He states that we are moving
towards digital enhancement and that the digitally wise will seek out and embrace useful
technologies. Wheeler (2013) in a deliberately provocative Twitter post stated, “There are no digital
natives. There is no net generation. We are all in this together. That is all”. I hope that investigations
around the impact of my resource will provide an insight to this debate and uncover how far along
this continuum the participant group of lecturers has come.
Limitations
The limitations to my research include time scales and participation. Given the relatively short time
frame for the project, I will limit my resource to the examination of skills and technology tools
identified by the School of Computing (NCI) specifically examining the potential of Twitter
(communication) and Wikis (collaboration) in the classroom. The initiative will allow me to connect
this research to meet a real educational need whilst setting up a natural boundary to the case study
as there are many alternative technology tools that could have been considered..
A concern is whether I will have sufficient numbers of educators willing to participate in the research
and more importantly complete the study. Currently, the Director of Learning and Teaching
Excellence is happy to allow me to present a workshop on the topic and lead a programme to
promote technology tools in the School of Computing but take up on the part of the lecturers is not
guaranteed.
The limitations to this project however provide opportunity for further study in the future – to
extend the resource and provide training education around the remaining 21 st century skills
identified.
Ethical Considerations
I propose to follow the ethical guidelines as detailed on the DIT website. My proposal will detail fair
and honest research utilising transparent methods of collection and analysis. The participants of the
study will have given their informed consent in advance and any information derived from the study
will be stored in a sensitive and confidential manner. All resulting data will be encrypted and backed
up and used only for this particular study. . Any published data will ensure the anonymity of the
participants.
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As I propose to submit my article for publication to the peer reviewed journal Technology, Pedagogy
and Education which is the journal of the Association of Information Technology in Teacher
Education (ITTE), it is prudent to gain approval from the DIT Ethics Committee at this stage.
Timescales
The project will 10 months to complete fully from initial literature review and development of the
online resource through to the implementation and observation period and final article writeup. A
tentative timetable is outlined below.
Word Count: 3,649
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June 2014: Review of all items for submittal in satisfaction of the M. Sc. In Applied eLearning
May 2014: Final writeup of article
April 2014: Conclusion of study and collation of questionnaire and final interview data
March 2014: Preliminary writeup of article
February 2014: Observations and half way interviews
January 2014: Meet with prospective study participants . Workshop & questionnaires to start the study
December 2013: Completion and testing of learning resource
November 2013: Completion of literature review
October 2013: Design of questionnaire, trial run and review by tutor
September 2013: Start of resource design /development & literature review
August 2013: A well deserved break
June/July 2013: Feedback receipt and subsequent review of thesis proposal
May 28 2013: Research proposal completion and submittal
April 2013: Research Journal selection and review of submittal guidelines
gguidesuidelinesequirements
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Bibliography
ATC21S (2010). Defining 21st century skills. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://atc21s.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1-Defining-21st-Century-Skills.pdf. [Last
Accessed 28/3/2013]
Bell, J. (1999). Doing your research project, a guide for first-time researchers in education and social
science. (2 ed.). Buckingham: Open Univ Press.
Center for 21st Century Skills (2013). Vision & philosophy. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.skills21.org. [Last Accessed 5/3/2013].
Churches, A. (2007). Blooms digital taxonomy. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy. [Last Accessed
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Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research methods in education. (6th ed.). New York:
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Dunlap J.C.& Lowental, P. R, (2009). Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to enhance social
presence. Journal of Information Systems Education. 20 (2)
Eggleston, T, (2010-2011). Selecting the right technology tool:. Essays on teaching excellence. 22 (5)
Eisenhardt, K, (1989). Building theories from case study research. The Academy of Managment
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Guidelines on ethical principles. (2009). Ethics in DIT. Retrieved May 6, 2013, from
http://www.dit.ie/researchandenterprise/ethicsindit
Hayden,D. (2013, May 18). Ireland well behind the curve in information technology teaching. The
IrishTimes. Retrieved from http://www.irishtimes.com
Johansson, R. (2003, September 22-24) Case study methodology. Keynote presented at the
International Conference “Methodologies in Housing Research” organised by the Royal
Institute of Technology in cooperation with the International Association of People–
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Environment Studies http://www.infra.kth.se/bba/IAPS%20PDF/paper%20Rolf
%20Johansson%20ver%202.pdf
Lightle, K, (2011). More than just the technology. ScienceScope. Summer ed.
Mihailidis, P & Cohen, J., (2013). Exploring curation as a core competency in digital and media
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Merlin John Online (2011). Open University research explodes myth of 'digital native' . [ONLINE]
Available at: http://agent4change.net/resources/research/1088-open-university-research-
explodes-myth-of-digital-naive.html. [Last Accessed 12/3/2013].
Moersch, C. Levels of Technology Implementation. Available at:
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/LOTI [Last Accessed 20/5/2013]
Morgan, L, (2011). Understanding the digital divide: A closer examination of the application of web
2.0 technologies by undergraduate students. The International Journal of Learning. 17 (10),
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Pacansky-Brock, (2013). Best practices for teaching with emerging techologies. 1st ed. New York:
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Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2011). P21 common core toolkit. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.p21.org/overview/skills-framework. [Last Accessed 17/4/2013].
Pearlman, B. (2010). Designing new learning environments. In J. Bellanca & R. Brandt, 21st century
skills: rethinking how students learn (pp. 117-148). Indiana: Solution Tree Press.
Prensky, M., (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon. 9 (5)
Prensky,M. (2009). “H. sapiens digital: From digital immigrants and digital natives to `digital
wisdom,” Innovate, volume 5, number 3, . [ONLINE] Available at:
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=705, [Last Accessed 20/5/2013]
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Potts A, Pridgen A, Hatch J., (2010). Understanding new literacies for new times: Pedagogy in action.
The International Journal of Learning. 17 (8), pp.187-194
Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2010),. Web 2.0: How-to for educators. ISTE
Stoerger, S. (2009). The digital melting pot: Bridging the digital native-immigrant divide. First
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Trilling, B. (2007) Toward learning societies and the global challenges for learning-with-ICT.
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Appendices
Andrew Churches Digital Taxonomy
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/file/view/bloom%27s%20Digital%20taxonomy
%20v3.01.pdf/65720266/bloom%27s%20Digital%20taxonomy%20v3.01.pdf
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Technology Integration Model
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/LOTI
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