ALT – C 2004

Pedagogical Aspectsthoughts on a theme

Prof Angela McFarlaneUniversity of Bristol

ALT – C 2004

Thoughts on conferences -

ALT – C 2004

What are they for?

•Networking– Inducting new members

•Information sharing– New ways of coping with volume

•Consensus building?– Tension between need to present and time

to debate

ALT – C 2004

Where is the emphasis?

Administration – providing timetables, lecture notes, reading lists

CMC – discussion, IM, SMS

Content presentation – learning object

ALT – C 2004

Are we neglecting what we know about learning when we research learning with digital technologies?

ALT – C 2004

Some excellent research at ALT-C suggests that the learner has not in fact changed that much –

their preferred methods of learning have a lot in common with resource based models of old.

they own their knowledge individually even where that knowledge is also shared.

collaboration is not spontaneous.

students subvert the purpose of systems. Moreover - They will reject cumbersome expensive discussion tools in favour of slicker, cheaper, familiar technologies such as email, IM and SMS.

ALT – C 2004

'Context matters'

ALT – C 2004

Where are the papers looking at the role of knowledge domains?

Physics is not like Spanish is not like philosophy

Good research in one domain should be wary of its claims for

generalisability

ALT – C 2004

How are we theorising the models behind elearning?

ALT – C 2004

Some great papers -

Well theorised, knew what they were looking for and why and offered critical analysis of what they found.

Theory is a only a tool – often used as a blunt instrument

‘Consensus reaching requires synchronous communications’‘Learning is social’ ‘ This theory proves that…’

Description, analysis, evaluation

Do we know what we know?

ALT – C 2004

Is it time to abandon the gurus?

The future has been a disappointment.

Lots of assertions that technology means everything is different

but people do not change so fast.

Maybe we should be seeking evolution not revolution – some good models here

Guidance, quality, consistency, management of expectations are still pertinent issues.

ALT – C 2004

Lots of short hand - assumptions of shared meaning can be dangerous.

Pedagogy?Community?

Learning?

ALT – C 2004

Are our assumptions about the attractiveness of online, anytime

anywhere learning backed by evidence?

ALT – C 2004

'We held a party but nobody came'

ALT – C 2004

Participation disappoints

Up to 30% of students not registered or active online in first weeks of the course – and they go on to become at risk students

Significant percentage of academics do not engage with learning technology

Small percentage of students contribute to blogs

Even in compulsory courses some students contribute the minimum.

Quality of submissions are uneven

How many of these are purely digital issues?

ALT – C 2004

Privacy is an issue

We can in theory know more about student action than ever before – their digital footprint is large and deep

How much should we trap?How much should we scrutinise?What on earth should we interpret it all to mean?

ALT – C 2004

Summary

Some great work – but its patchy and we need to ensure we are not constantly re-discovering the known

Mind the gap – finding appropriate theory to help us understand what we are doing is hard, applying it to research design or implementation is harder

Small can be beautiful – thoroughly understanding a part of a system and its dependencies may take us further forward than whole system level work

The best work seems to come from inter-disciplinary teams who understand technology, pedagogy and context