JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learning Technologies for the
Social Networking Generation
Marion Miller
JISC RSC YH Manager
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Thank you
• Robert Harding• Tom Franklin• Nicola Whitton • Steve Wheeler• Craig Wentworth• Haydn Blackey
• Theresa Beattie• Will Stewart• Andy Black• Bob Rotherham • Andy Powell• Kevin Wright
And many others…
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Now a greater focus on the learner and learning – not about the tool or platform but what the learners do
with them.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Points raised in my introduction plus some additional ones!
• Learning resources + Learner control• Learner readiness for web 2.0 technology• Collaboration• Learner reflection • Social networks• Communication • Staff development
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner Control
• Which technologies and practices will empower our learners and what kind of support and guidance with learners require?
• What about the learners who may not wish to have ‘control’? They might have quite different expectations of their course.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Structure of learning and learning resources
• Wikiversity - Creating a new space for learning - presently uses traditional subject/school categories mainly to help people find resources. How do we totally embrace new models for learning within the structure?
• Introducing Scholar – controlled manner to provide consistency but are relaxing at the fringes to allow user defined tags
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Accessing Learning Resources
• A shift away from VLEs to looking at content and collaboration across institutions (Bcccampus/Orange Grove demo) – shared ownership– federated searching google, vles, etc– Mapping of resources to curriculum structures– RSS feeds linked to user entered complex searches
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learning resources• Students appeared to show a reluctance to
share or recommend resources to others (Go Forth and Scholar)
• Reducing sustainability risks by spreading content across sites. Some IPR issues and lack of control over the environment (Web 2.0 and informal learning) – JISC Web 2.0 briefing paper
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learning Resources
• Copyright/intellectual property rights:– Plagiarism in podcasts – difficult to identify as
they can not be cross referenced– New social networking and repository systems
– licensing issues with uploaded material.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learning Resources• Inclusivity issues – 4 key points (JISC
Techdis):-– Accessible interface = Can I work the technology?– Accessible content = Am I supported?– Accessible task = Do I engage?– Cultural capital = Do I value what I am doing?
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner ‘readiness’ for web 2.0
• But are our learners ready for this? Are they all comfortable with using these technologies?
• Do they want to use these technologies as part of their education?
• What about learners who are not part of this social networking generation? If we use these tools, will they be able to adapt to its use or will they ‘opt out’?
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner ‘readiness’ for web 2.0
• Students not using certain Web 2.0 tools to the extent that we have assumed. (Digital inquiry and social networking) (small study but similar to findings from online survey of 1,000 students at Oxford)
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner ‘readiness’ for web 2.0
• Emerging themes:– Technology is integral to life– Constructed identities as (mostly) confident fluent
savvy technology users (this was not backed up by their usage)
– Reported knowledge and use of web 2.0 and social networking as limited
– Little personalisation of environments– Inf. access and social communication emphasised
much more than creation or learning -related communication
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner ‘readiness’ for web 2.0• Strong ownership and control associated with informal
environment (Facebook)• Weak ownership, control and co-creation associated with
formal environments• Little formal or informal use of web 2 to support discipline
based learning• Little evidence of shift in locus of control• Learners saw a strict boundary between formal and
informal (ownership, purpose, conventions look/feel) no blurring of boundaries between formal and informal
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner ‘readiness’ for web 2.0
• Learners who are new to web 2 technologies would appreciate ‘light’ social time with the technologies to start them off before launching into learning uses – would help reduce fears of the unknown (Which side of the wall are you on)
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Podcasting• Learners creating podcasts – most interesting assignment
of their course but no difference in grades…. • Supplementary material in podcasts not just lectures. • Getting learners to create resources for learners in other
years – anecdotally helpful. • How do we assess these skills? - (employability) • Might learners demonstrate improvement in future
modules as a result of this assignment?• Maybe need to look closely at the content and purpose of
the podcast?
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Learner ‘readiness’ for web 2.0• Shifting learning perceptions/expectations of learning and
traditional modes may not fit these (Miller/Newnham):– Active learning– 24/7– Evolving learning styles
• Push technology – pop ups etc• Pull technology – user has full control over frequency• An issue of engagement with podcasting
Conclusion
Podcasting is a valuable addition to the educational experience
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Blogging
• Blogging did not take off (small sample learner age 28-50 yrs)(GPS enabled PDAs)– Frustrations with technology– Inhibitions about the openness of the blog– Lacked ownership– 2 learners did set up a separate wiki but others did not contribute
• Investigation planned into the geocaching communities.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Peer review
• Wiki-based peer tutoring - Open University of the Netherlands
• A ‘jumping the chasm’ example
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Wiki-based peer tutoring
• Student posts content question• The system sets up a wiki with the question. Using latent semantic
analysis, the system determines the most relevant text fragments (works for open university as plenty of online resources rather than lecture content) and courses; (Built an extension to moodle to do this analysis).
• Selects the most suitable 3 peers to answer the question based on:– Content competence– Availability– Elegibility (learner who has just achieved a level slightly
higher than the student asking the question)
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Wiki-based peer tutoring
• They are all invited to join a wiki• This 'ad hoc' transient community only comes
together for the sole purpose of answering the question.
• More questions were posed and more were answered, fewer second invitations were needed; questions answered twice as fast; answers rated higher for accuracy
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Wiki-based peer tutoring
• Inspection of the wikis showed that students did not use them as wikis, they imposed forum structures and did not use each others answers to create a collaborative answer.
• Other studies reported that the learners saw the wiki as a presentation tool and not a collaborative tool – need mores studies on how students see these things
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Wiki-based peer tutoring
• Experimental test on efficiency and effectiveness - but system is open source but needs extensive testing.
• Can we use ad hoc transient communities within large communities.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Staff development
• How are lecturers and those that support learners supported and encouraged to try out these technologies so they can make informed decisions on their use?
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Staff development
• Lecturer concern over inflicting podcasting on students without experiencing this themselves. Do we have to be users and be immersed in technology to fully understand how they should be used?
• Time for lecturers to learn …
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Staff development
• Phoebe and London Planner - pedagogic planning tools
• LAMS not clearly perceived as a design planning tool and may not be pedagogical nuetral, tool for reinforcing linear process? (Themes from a LAMS evaluation)
• Video tagging• Camels project – using an e-forum in second
life – cross institutions HE and FE
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Communication
• Do we want to consider this in the way communication occurs with and around the learner?
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Collaborative learning
• How online competition brought learners together
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Collaborative learning• Collaborative 14-19 project across Local Authorities with
some Colleges (How online competition brought learners together) – Encourage collaborative elearning – Active learning construction– Renders traditional barriers invisible– Shared outcomes and responsibilities– Operates at many different interconnected levels - school, class,
subject, age, location – Student instigated and managed communities
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Collaborative learning
• Collaborative learning - learner set objectives and they choose the route they want to take.
• Well defined learning projects• Student centred and student led• Primary purpose to benefit other students• Coaching role for the teacher and online mentor • Using the leader as a mentor for the next lot of students.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Social networks
• What makes a social network successful?• Can social networks be used within
learning? • But would they engage the learner? Do
they want to be engaged in this way in education?
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Lessons learnt from online gaming….
• Cultural capital and community developing the pursuit of dragon slaying
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Reflection
• Digital Story Telling – opportunity to create can liberate learners; learner has choice within a tight focus; involve reflect, share, co-create, co-reflect
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Main points
• Less mention of issues and barriers around the technology (e.g. reliability and access)
• Greater focus now on the learner and learning – not about the tool or platform but what the learners do with them.
• Focus on learner needs which might lead to learner control.
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Main Points (2)• More focus on practices and pedagogy • Tutors may need to use web 2.0 tools in order to
understand their potential in learning• Focus on small steps for tutors which help to
engage• Communication is changing with instances of
learners being the conduit for communication in a course or project
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
What we need….
• Need longer studies and more rigorous studies with more quantitative data
• Need to look at how we measure impact and measure over a longer period of time
• Need to investigate how learners perceive web 2.0 technologies
JISC RSCs: Stimulating and Supporting Innovation in Learning
Marion MillerJISC RSC YH Manager
University of Leeds
Email: [email protected]
Mobile: 07966 756 774