Tel Tales

Adventures in Technology Enhanced Learning @ UoP

Author: Shaun Searle

laptop opened on table showing a zoom call with many facial images appearing. With a cup right next to the laptop

Are we being “captured” by our content – an opinion piece

January 9, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Where misconceptions remain, should we reframe our understanding to ensure we don’t fall into bad habits?

I had a very interesting conversation with a Learning Designer with regards to video content on Moodle. The impromptu office conversation is something I’ve treasured since we returned to Campus post-pandemic. One of the gems to come from this conversation was – what constitutes good online teaching and what relationship does that have to video content?

The office consensus, perhaps understandable given our teaching backgrounds, was that the context in which the video is used is vital. Whether used in a flipped learning manner to stimulate further in-person discussion or to progress learning beyond the glass ceiling of set learning outcomes.

Ale Armellini has promoted the message that context, rather than content is king. He has said this on various stages and I am fortunate enough to have been in the room where those discussions have taken place. For the unacquainted, he provides a brief outline here https://www.cla.co.uk/blog/higher-education/content-is-not-king.  One idea is that the job of a university is to enable successful learning through quality teaching, but I wonder if sometimes ‘content capture’ falls into traps based on the phrase itself. 

The use of the word ‘content’ is both understandable and important in its distinction from ‘lecture capture’, the process of merely recording on-campus taught sessions. The University’s Content Capture policy offers both a definition of the term and examples of the various forms it can take:

“For example, this could be a short recording (audio and slides), a written summary of the session or a clearly annotated copy of the presentation slides providing an overview of key points, threshold concepts, or discussing points that students find difficult to understand. Such summaries, which need only be a few minutes long, can be created quickly and easily using available technology” (University of Portsmouth Content Capture Policy for Staff 2022, 3.2 p.6) 

While video tends to be the most popular medium, in terms of creation by academics and what is demanded by students, are we led to this by convenience and ease of access rather than what is the best for learning?

There is a danger that content capture can fall into the same trap that lecture capture falls into – the recording of an event. A means of cataloguing, or proving “teaching woz ere” at a particular place or time. The meaning of capture (hopefully ignoring the alternative meaning to take into one’s possession or control by force!) is below…

screenshot of the google page with the definition of capture written on it

The question is what are we recording accurately here? Is it a glorified how-to video? Are there opportunities to use and apply the knowledge within for the student?  I wonder if video content has good learning intentions but would this automatically translate to successful learning outcomes? There are a lot more moving parts involved. Just because a module has videos, it does not mean that it is a good example of an online learning resource.

VLEs at one period were rather like the Wild West. Modules would vary from town to town based on their sheriff – some hospitable to visitors, and some, a lawless landscape. A pandemic and the creation of a Blended and Connected delivery have helped improve the student experience online and has given them a much-needed consistent approach. The University quite rightly received plaudits with a CATE award.  This rewarded the hard work and efforts of all involved but also recognised the drive to change the culture around online learning and content capture.

However, with the weekly format of Moodle modules, students expect staff to “deliver” videos about the relevant taught content on a regular basis. Do we lose the true meaning of content capture and fall into the trap of just capturing material week by week?

Rather atypical to an opinion blog piece, this is meant to pose more questions and stimulate conversation rather than drawing definitive conclusions (surely I can get another blog out of that!).  The next time you wish to add a video to your VLE, perhaps it is also worth considering the given circumstances of learning around that material. Hopefully, then it will capture your students’ attention, meaning they will fully engage in not just the content, but the learning around it.

Credit Image: Photo by Compare Fibre on Unsplash 

A pair of glasses sat upright in front of a monitor. The monitor has some coding on the screen, which is blurred.

Don’t Lose it, Reuse it! Uploading old videos to Panopto can breathe life into old material

March 8, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

I normally start all of my blogs with an anecdote from my decade of teaching and this time I’m going to take you all the way back! Back to my early days when I was a headstrong newly qualified teacher that had aspirations to be inspirational, full of new and cutting edge ideas and naive to any of the politics around the job. The pressure to achieve results and improve particularly my classes’ writing levels meant I always spent a lot of time (far too much!) trying to think up new activities to address the issue. Being an English specialist and with aspirations to lead the subject, it became my own personal crusade. I felt if I could improve my classes’ fine motor skills, this, in turn, would hopefully improve the quality of writing produced. I used to have sleepless nights over why my tasks that had taken ages to prepare, were in tune with their interests and created with cool computer images were having no impact. I ran this past a more mature teacher who showed me quite a thick book from the mid-’70s / early ’80s that contained cutting activities.  The book itself had seen a lot of action and initially, I was very dismissive, saying that kids nowadays would have little interest in something so dated. She asked me to try it for a week and lo and behold my class loved it! It had other benefits I hadn’t foreseen such as calming and improving behaviour, making them take pride and care in their work. The writing levels did improve but not for my innovations but from my repurposing of old material that had been successful previously and was still relevant to my current students.

I then probably broke numerous copyright laws and spent a couple of hours after school photocopying the whole book and actually learned quite a big lesson in respecting the input of others. This particular resource helped me throughout my career, in 3 different schools for years and when I started leading Early Years, the ideas behind the resources became a staple part in providing children with the building blocks to begin their writing journey on.

No need to reinvent the wheel

This probably seems a very convoluted way in which to start a blog post for a University but currently, I am working through moving old Ubicast videos over to Panopto. While this is a long-winded process (I have to download them and reupload them on an individual basis), watching some of the Learning and Teaching Conference videos from 4 years ago has made me realise that a lot of the pedagogic messages ring true today.

An image of how to Add a clip

I won’t use the blog to explain how to upload videos to Panopto as it is all outlined on the relevant page of the Content Capture part of the Preparing for Teaching in a Blended Learning Context.

The process of uploading videos to Panopto is fairly straightforward and perhaps a key element of it is that on a video’s upload, it inherits all of the features of a newly created Panopto video. This includes Automatic Speech Recognition, which is essential for the video to adhere to modern accessibility standards. It is worth stating that it is dependent on the sound quality of the recording itself (particularly if it is an older video or one of a live event) and the captions will need to be reviewed, just as any should before the video is used publicly.

Also within Panopto, there is an ability to add clips from other Panopto videos and you could also take this one step further and splice multiple video clips together to make a whole new creation.

I have old videos, what’s the next step

We will be looking to automatically migrate videos from the University’s repository, Compass in advance of the next academic year, however, due to the scale of the operation (there are nearly 30,000 videos) and the complexity (not every video has a clear owner), it needs to be actioned after periods of activity such as the assessment period.

That does not mean you have to wait! If there is a video in the Compass repository that you feel would be immediately beneficial to your teaching, please contact eLearn@port.ac.uk with all of the relevant information as they have administrator access to both systems and would be able to assist with moving this content over. Equally, you may feel more comfortable talking to the faculty Online Course Developers local to you as their role is to assist with Moodle content and they may have some excellent advice regarding it.

Final Thoughts

Most importantly, really consider why you wish to use a video and what the learning intention is behind it. The TEL Training session Content Capture and Distance Learning will promote the idea of using shorter videos to efficiently get your message across and engage the viewer more. Just because it is possible to upload an old 4-hour conference video, does not necessarily mean that you should. However, what it can do is to provide a different focal point to affirm a concept or to address a misconception.

Credit Image: Photo by Kevin Ku on Unsplash

a small pile of books sitting one on top of the other, with a row of different colour lego blocks an apple and a computer mouse

Using Technology in Learning is Child’s Play – Can HE learn lessons from Primary Education?

July 13, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

I am fortunate enough to work in an open plan office and regularly hear the inspirational words of the staff from ACDEV, working with lecturers to unpick their true learning intentions and ways to engage learners. The range of ideas and enthusiasm given within the discussion makes me want to don my teaching cap again but it also makes me reflect on my past experience of 10 years teaching in Primary Education. 

A common question we have from lecturers is how can I use technology to engage my students more. I think this could be reworded as how can technology enable further

learning to take place. The pedagogic ideas need to be there in the first place and this idea that technology is a magic wand needs to be dispelled (pardon the pun!).

Primary education – students with short attention spans, sound familiar?

Within Primary Education there is the traditional approach of starter and introduction (normally on the carpet), activity and then a plenary at the end. This is a very simplistic structure and there are plenty of variances but I want to focus on the carpet time element. There was an urban myth of sorts that children can only concentrate and focus on the carpet for the number of minutes of their age. So in a lot of my cases, that was 4-5 minutes to get my main message across about what I wanted them to learn in the lesson. Now I am not for one suggesting 20 minute lectures but are university students that much different to primary school children? We try to promote within content capture sessions to do small bitesize recordings as they are the most viewed and well received. It made me think outside the box and get my class up and moving, or taking them outside. Quite often we would play games and children would not realise they are learning, they were hooked.

Hooking them in with technology

While this is impractical in HE due to the layout of teaching spaces around the university, another means is to use technology. I was fortunate enough to meet the late Tim Rylands. He was a truly inspirational educator who won many plaudits for pioneering gamification. I wanted to share the clip below, to highlight not the actual technology used (the clip is 5 years old) but the creative thinking behind it. 

https://youtu.be/Aux_3KLxjkQ

The current flowing throughout is to engage and motivate learners and while children of primary age are perhaps a more wide and open audience, the premise is still valid in HE.

Our department offers an ‘Enhancing Lectures’ training session which has this very ethos at heart. Using a student engagement platform such as Nearpod allows students to be co-contributors to the events unfolding within their lecture. Their input is used and valued and they become active stakeholders in the success of the learning experience.

Do we promote this sort of practice enough?

Final Thoughts

Stand and Deliver may be an iconic 80’s track and may get a nostalgic airing in a club night but may not be to the liking of the modern day student. Why then should we expect the old fashioned delivery method of standing at the front of the lecture theater and imparting knowledge to be any different? I believe we need to reflect on our own pedagogic practices and survey the ever expanding landscape of technology to engage students further.

These are uncertain times and whether it’s the Moodle and Technology Conference within the Science and Health faculty on our return to campus or the Online Teaching and Learning festival in July, these provide academics with plenty of ideas and stimuli. Perhaps the greatest learning progression starts not with the student but the educators themselves.

Image Credit: Photo by Thomas Kolnowski on Unsplash

Audiovisual in Education – A general discussion about a topic that is more relevant than ever

August 27, 2019 / / 0 Comments

My colleague Tom Langston recently visited a session hosted by Learning on Screen, The British Universities and Colleges Film and Video Council (https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/) and it reminded me of a previous visit I undertook a few years ago (before Instagram!) which I thought I’d use to form the basis of this blog. One of the great things about escaping the university is the possibility to network and have discussions with professionals from other institutions and companies. Spanning business and education, it is amazing how views match or differ and hearing a different take on modern university life is insightful.

Technology is a “new” problem

A concept I encounter on a near daily basis is the trouble of meeting the modern demands of the student with technology as it has progressed at such a rate of knots, that we are struggling to keep up. Interestingly, the minutes from the council’s meeting in 1954 were shared with the attendees and the main themes and issues raised were assessing our own pedagogy, how to use new mediums in education and the advancement of technology. Issues that are very topical even in 2019.

A concept also levied at us is that the “modern student” has never been so technologically advanced. They were raised in the age of the internet and the school years were entwined with handheld device usage. They have not necessarily needed to phone up Uncle Ray or another assigned family expert to ask him about 17th century monarchs as they can “google” it. This Generation Z or iGen, as they may be referred to, use and naturally access technology in a very different way to their predecessors or their more ancient educators.

However with this is a common misconception about levels of understanding. Just because a student can use an iPhone and access film, does not mean they “know” or are experts in it. 

Access does not automatically equal knowledge 

Are these digital natives as savvy as we think they are? Or is it a gross assumption based on our observations of them accessing technology. HE Institutions (as well as our team) are looking closer at digital capabilities and providing support for those who need it, but do we as educators need to consider assessing the digital needs of the students rather than naturally assuming that they would want VR tours and interacting with embedded H5P content. 

It draws me to the constructivist approach when teaching Primary Science in my previous life, where you would have your topic but it’s ultimately the students who govern how they are going to learn and find out things and it can result in an outcome at a far greater depth due to their immersion in the process.

A tension between form and context

Visual Literacy and the use of audiovisual also opens up an array of issues to consider. Take for example the BBC , which has an unbelievable bank of resources. The issue of copyright and ownership is a topic we have had blogs about in the past. There is a view that we need to have some buy in from the broadcasters and content owners to serve education. This would open up the concept of not just reusing sources but being creative beyond the content’s initial use. The idea of repurposing the material, taking an old thing a part and making something new with it. The BBC Archive, was created to be used by film-makers and was not necessarily intended for public consumption. It opens up a can of worms that perhaps material that looks fairly inconspicuous today, can have a massive impact in the future. This is evident due to the scandals raised by historical tweets being uncovered and the use of archived film footage in investigations into high profile court cases about abuse.

There has to be some education for students about not just the technology and media we use but the context around it.

Final Thoughts

The more we look to bring audiovisual into our teaching, the more we are going to have to look at ourselves and change how we teach. The idea that people sit in blacked out rooms watching films is an old school pedagogic view, just as the days of students being sat down talked at are no more.

There is an element of Audiovisual that gets their eyes off of their screens and onto the intended one at the front. We can use technology and platforms such as Twitter to allow students to engage on an individual basis. We must ensure that it is not a passive viewing experience but allows students to research, reference and back up their own point of view, offering the stimulus for a voice that otherwise may have stayed quiet.

The final thing to consider is the danger that if we spend too long of today worrying and focusing on “how to use technology and film” and it prevents trial, implementation and reflection, in ten years time those concerns will be obsolete and new issues will have replaced them.

Images from:

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

 

School chairs set into row as if people were going to take an exam

Assessment online – Are we past the “hand-in” date?

July 1, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

In eLearn, we have just reached the end of the exam period with our faculties intact (excuse the pun) and with very little drama (which is not normally the case). The sight of nervous students queuing up outside of Spinnaker for an exam inside a gym hall bought all those memories of dread I had experienced nearly 20 years ago flooding back.

When I think about how much has changed in the teaching landscape in terms of the integration of technology into teaching, as well as the diverse ways in which people attend university, I can’t help but feel this method of summative assessment is rather antiquated.

This could very easily turn into a blog about the nature of summative assessment, which I wrote far too many assignments about in 2004 as part of my teaching degree. I don’t want this to turn into a virtual trip down memory lane for myself but a means to highlight what is different and future possibilities.

The wonder of Turnitin

With my teacher hat firmly still on my head, I can’t be more positive about this technology when it comes to marking, having lived the late nights devoted to marking never ending piles of papers. True, it has its faults and the late nights may have merely been transferred from pen and paper to in front of a screen but it has so many facets designed to make the experience easier for both marker and student. You can’t help but feel its implementation has been a large forward step in the progression of assessment. Being able to customise and apply quickmarks across assignments prevents the numerous occasions “RTQ” would have to be written. The possibility of copy and pasting comments or highlighting text to directly link to aspects of a rubric are all seemingly small things that actually take hours when going through the work of 90 students and that is before you give personalised feedback that moves learning on.

The student gets a rich visual experience that can be accessed on any device and feedback is so easily obtainable/downloadable that it could only promote reflective practise. The hand-in process has changed dramatically with the long line outside of the faculty admin office with bound assignment in hand is a thing of the past and it can now be submitted in bed with a cuppa. Don’t get me wrong, you will still get students who will leave it till the last minute and those who perhaps have been a little too influenced by other sources within their writing but nevertheless a snapshot of this process in 2019 vastly differs from 2009 and is a world away from 1999. The same of which can’t be said for the end of year exam.

Quizzes – More than just for daytime tv

Perhaps it is slightly unfair to portray examinations at university to be solely desk based due to the increase in exams being carried out online using Moodle Quiz. The Quiz tool is far more powerful and robust than perhaps people realise. Yes you can use it to create multiple choice “pop quizzes” for the end of topic or to elicit prior conceptions at the start of something new but it can also be used to make 100 questioned essay-based behemoths which include a variety of different question types. Safe Exam Browser allows for it to be taken under true exam restrictions and the ease in which times and restrictions can be customised makes them far more accessible than its paper-based counterpart. Claro Reader software can be used to overlay colours and intuitively applies text-to-speech (dependant on how the exam has been written of course!). The possibility of including image or video within an exam assessment not only opens up a wealth of ways to question but leads me on to my next point.

The Audiovisual Essay

I was very fortunate to have witnessed a presentation from the inspiring Dr Catherine Grant who spoke about the concept The Audiovisual Essay in Film & Moving Image Studies. I would certainly recommend visiting the website, which explores the concept in great detail. There are some amazing examples and relevant research that has been undertaken about the subject. For those who are unfamiliar with this form it is essentially the expression of critical, analytical and theoretical work using the resources of audiovisuality (images/sound/video in montage) I begrudge trying to pigeon hole the genre further but it truly flies in the wind against sitting in a hall for 3 hours writing an English Literature exam. While it lends itself to creative, historical, visually rich courses and cannot be applied across the board, the premise of it being a “different” way to demonstrate understanding is valid.

Final Thoughts

This brings us back to assessment types and again perhaps explains the shift towards the greater emphasis on coursework-based assessment models. That in my eyes is a different debate, this blog is exploring whether sitting in hall to carry out an end of year assessment still has a place in modern university life. You have to question over their time in Higher Education, how many opportunities students get to sit at a desk for a considerable time and demonstrate their understanding in that way. Are we providing students with a rather unnatural medium by which to demonstrate their understanding? Does that in turn affect their ability to reach their true potential? Particularly as the end of year summative assessment the culmination of the blood, sweat and tears of their learning journey, do we not owe it to the learner to reassess the way we make this final assessment. The flip side of this is to give students more exam practice and opportunities but is this a direction where we want to go? To me that seems to be a practice that would be looking in the rear view mirror where I would argue we should have our eyes on the road ahead.

 

Featured Image:

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Using augmented reality on a handheld device

Augmented Reality as an Educational Tool

December 18, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Introduction

My first dealings of Augmented Reality within an educational context came with an attempt to engage 4-year-old boys with their first steps in writing. To anyone who has worked within an open plan early years environment containing 90 children, trying to get boys – who would much rather be running around outside – to pick up a writing tool to mark make, is similar to herding cats! Using the Quiver app, children were able to choose a picture from a selection and colour it in how they liked. The app then showed an augmented reality animation of their picture, showing their specific markings. This gave the children ownership and allowed them to buy into the creative process.

Earlier in the year I was fortunate enough to attend the ‘Working with Technology Enhanced Learning’ networking event in association with Southern University Libraries. Debbie Holley from Bournemouth University gave an inspiring and practical presentation demonstrating Aurasma and told us about her experiences researching it in collaboration with Anglia Ruskin University. You can visit Augmented@ARU for further user guides, blogs and some useful resources to use to demonstrate  the app.

What is Aurasma?

Aurasma states that it is the world’s leading augmented reality platform, is currently used across a wide range of sectors and is beginning to filter into higher education. Aurasma allows the user, with the use of a mobile device, to combine a real time/real world view of an object (such as a poster, book, brochure or item of equipment) with an overlay that plays sound, displays an image or even a short video.

It works by using the mobile device’s camera to ‘find’ the image, which then links to the given media that the user has associated with it. Because it is essentially trying to match the image, the subject needs to be static and something that is unlikely to change over time – I’ve tried this out using numerous face images and decided that people or moving objects don’t really work! The ‘Auras’ that the user creates can be stored and used on the device, or uploaded to Aurasma and made public for anyone to find. This YouTube video shows how Aurasma can be used:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuSQo0vAugA

Aurasma in action

Aurasma is relatively easy to use. Depending on their device, users can download the Aurasma app from the relevant Apple or Android store. On downloading you are prompted to create a free account, though free ‘Auras’ are limited in their accessibility to followers of the creator.

There are enhanced ‘Pro’ accounts available at a cost that allow access to a wider range of media content that allows the creation of ‘Auras’ that can be accessed by the general public.  

This makes sense as it allows Aurasma to police the amount of open Auras created, as well as limiting it to high end advertising campaigns of companies that can afford the high cost of this service. While this limits the average user in terms of creation, it does help provide a number of high quality Aura’s that really show the possibilities and the power of Augmented Reality. (I would particularly recommend the Frozen, Star Wars and Mike’s Hard Lemonade as examples of how marketing campaigns have used Aurasma to incorporate video, animation and interactivity with their users.)

You will also need to consider your device’s Wi-Fi connection. Though it can use a phone’s 3G/4G data allowance, do bear in mind that most Aura’s link to video, animations or music, so it will be dependent on this.

Aurasma requires the user to capture a trigger image within the parameters of the viewfinder, namely an indicated rectangle on the screen. When an Aura has been discovered the 7 dots change to a pulsing circle animation to inform the user that content has been found and is loading. The speed of this is dependent on both the speed of the device’s internet connection and the size of the download. Factors such as light and stability of the camera shot can create difficulties in the app ‘finding’ the Aura. Equally, trying to use an Aura displayed on a computer/television screen seems to take longer than when finding a real life object, possibly due to reflection or glare from the screen’s brightness.

Discovering and finding content is great fun given the variety and ingenuity of the Auras on offer. Within the app or website there is an opportunity to search for terms, and most Auras have various hashtags to help you.

It should also be an educator’s first port of call when wishing to add augmented content to their lectures and resources, as there is no need to reinvent the wheel by creating content that already exists, and the eclectic range gives a good scope of possibilities. Should you not find exactly what you were after, it is quite easy to create your own Aura with the user placing an overlay over an image. The overlay can be one of the animations provided by Aurasma’s default library. You can use existing video, audio and images up to a 20Mb limit on your portable device within the app.

Alternatively you can download Aurasma Studio, which is a free desktop application available from the website allowing up to 100Mb overlays, so if you want to have video of a higher resolution, this may be the method for you.

Creating an Aura is very straightforward and user-friendly and there is a nice feature of quality control on the image capture, which grades your Aura by contrast from red (insufficient) to green (good image quality). The overlay image can be positioned simply by dragging, and intuitively uses all of the finger gestures of a portable device for resizing and rotating objects. Once created, the user can publish it to a ‘public’ channel that followers can access on the Aurasma app.

Final thoughts

I think the use of augmented reality can only help engage students further into the subject they are studying. The advantage of using Aurasma is it’s ease of use, the ability to use it on a variety of devices and platforms, as well as being free and actively encouraging users to create their own content.

The drawbacks come with a limited choice of templates and a cap on the amount of data you can use, but as a ‘gateway’ for encouraging educators to use augmented reality in their session, it is excellent. It’s ability to provide information and weblinks give much wider usage – from interactive university maps during induction of new students, to historical views of monuments on field trips – that mean higher education has numerous and unlimited possibilities for its usage.

 

Images from:

https://gigaom.com/2012/09/17/telefonica-bets-on-augmented-reality-with-aurasma-tie-in/

http://readwrite.com/2010/06/02/how_augmented_reality_helps_doctors_save_lives/

Featured Image:

Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash

 

Lecturer presenting at the front of the class

Is learning inevitable? Are teachers an essential part of the process?

July 17, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Is now the right time to question our role in education?

In my previous role of ICT Co-Ordinator within local primary schools, one of the key components of my job was to source and purchase new technology for the school. I know the University are making large capital investments, one such example is the £11 million Future Technology Centre. With ever decreasing budgets and tightening of the purse strings, I had to research and plead my case, attend numerous Senior Leader and Governor meetings to stress how vital this technology was for learning and for future attendees of the school. There were many hoops to jump through and numerous games to play just to get a fraction of the budget I had bid for. So you can imagine my reaction when at a headteachers conference I was sat on a table with a very proud Headteacher who had just spent a large amount of money on 60 iPads with the aim to eventually ensure every child has one in the school. When quizzed on the reasoning behind this strategy, what confounded me was how little thought seemed to be behind this. Now there may have been an ICT Co-Ordinator working tirelessly in the background, who had a detailed 5-year plan to modernise the school but this wasn’t shared by the headteacher. “We haven’t thought that far yet!” “They can access the internet in class.” and “They can use them instead of writing in books!” as if the technology automatically is “better” than pencil and paper were later offered as reasons.

There is a lot of research and evidence that backs up the use of mobile technology in the classroom and it is my view that educators can use technology to support the learning of any subject. As is the importance of bringing the technology to the hands of the students rather than them having to trundle off to the antiquated computer suite. It did get me thinking about the technology first/pedagogy second approach.

Steve Wheeler

Steve Wheeler is Associate Professor of Learning Technologies at the Plymouth Institute of Education where he chairs the Learning Futures group and leads the Computing and Science education teams. Within his widely renowned educational blog Learning with e’s, he asked the question: What is Digital Learning? I would certainly recommend reading it but he does come up with two huge statements within it that bear thinking about. Firstly “Learning is learning. Whether you use technology or not is relative. Using the tools and technologies will enable you to connect with more content and peers, more quickly and effectively. However, learning without technology is also a reality for all of us”  before hitting home with the notion: “Here’s the bottom line: Learning will happen if the conditions are right, and it will happen whether teachers and technology are present or not.”

My background in both training staff in Primary and Higher Education is to promote the educator’s role as being one of the facilitator and technology is medium through which this is channeled or amplified. However, with the premise of flipped classrooms, student led research and truly constructivist approaches where students not educators dictate the direction that their learning takes (which in turn leads to new and unforeseen outcomes) – Do we educators overestimate our importance to the process?

Sugata Mitra

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for Sugata Mitra’s address at the Hampshire ICT conference where he discussed his Hole in the Wall research project. I would thoroughly recommend watching his 2010 TED talk where he outlines how he placed a computer with the internet in the slums and observed how children with no prior knowledge and poor English skills learnt on their own through a process of exploration, discovery and peer coaching when interacting with technology. He coined the term  Minimally Invasive Education which is a pedagogic method that uses the learning environment (or in this case a Learning Station) to generate motivation to induce learning with minimal or no intervention from a teacher. Further information about this can be found on the Hole-in-the-Wall website. While this study is aimed at younger students, I feel the research findings have merit with their Higher Education counterparts. The ability to access content, learn from it and most importantly retain it is enhanced, the overall academic improvement of the students and the close proximity to the performance of their peers who received formal computer education would certainly advocate a “let them loose with the technology” approach.

Final thoughts

We recently received a presentation from Chris Chang about the University’s policy on global engagement and it is fair to say that the makeup of our student intake is becoming increasingly diverse. It is not purely about what learning is imparted during lectures on campus, the use of Moodle as a supporting tool to encourage independent, self governed learning requires the pedagogists to think deeper about their audience and the intended learning outcomes. Distance Learners do not set foot on campus and do not get to see educators “in the flesh” but still are required to (and do) reach the same standard through further intuitive interactions such as webinars, forums and quizzes.  We are in a world where the modern student has unprecedented levels of access and connectivity with their peers around the world. Teachers/educators need to be fluid and change like the world around them. If the “way” in which we deliver education does not change then we may find ourselves in a world where our students or our institutions no longer need us to get to where they want to be.

 

Featured Image:

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

 

Tablet displaying apps

Can technology provide us with the opportunity to move away from traditional delivery methods?

June 5, 2017 / / 0 Comments

“The most vital app an educator could use is good purposeful teaching”

Introduction

On the way back from setting up the Mobile Ubicast unit for a lecturer, I had an interesting discussion about the use of technology in teaching. My first thoughts took me back to my previous life as an ICT co-ordinator of a primary school where a member of the leadership team teaching was eager to be observed “using ICT” within their teaching. What unfolded was 45 uncomfortable minutes of the educator using a digital camera within an English lesson. Of course it led to my first question of “why did you use the technology?” It did not help the students achieve their learning goals in English, whilst also not allowing them to develop or demonstrate skills using the technology.

Digital technology and equipment help provide multiple access points, like a door with multiple handles at different heights but ultimately pedagogy and learning intentions must stay at the forefront of the educators mind. It brought me back to a great JISC document I read based on the Digital experiences students should have. I thought I would signpost a few of the parts that I found most interesting and hopefully it may spark a few ideas of how technology could be used in your lectures.

Social referencing

Jane Challinor gives a good account of the trials and tribulations of using Diigo social bookmarking site with level one undergraduates She outlines the discovery that students at Level 2 and 3 were found to have poor research skills. Even at level 3 students made little use of academic journals and the cause of academic irregularity were caused by poor record keeping, especially of web based sources so a key feature of the module was to introduce the students to e-search, a tool which allows students to search journal database similar to Athens. By using groups within Diigo not only could students benefit from the features of a social referencing site such group/shared discussions, bookmarking and direct online source linking, it gave lecturers the opportunity to monitor student activity, thus make it an assessment for learning tool encouraging precision teaching. Without giving away any spoilers (!) it not only improved the students record keeping and bookmarking, it changed their whole attitude and behaviour towards using online sources and journals within assignments.

Digital critique

As there is broad range of digital sources of communication to reference from online, it gives students the ability to develop skills of critique that takes them beyond just reading text on screen. It allows students to examine a specific source in terms of its credibility, argument, tone, implied audience and provenance – who is hosting and propagating this message? This could then influence the creation of their own digital content, with a greater appreciation of its purpose and the audience it is targeted at. New Media Literacy: a blog post by Lynsay Grant offers an interesting blog based on critique against re-design that is well worth a read.

 

Use a simulation to support real-world practice

Simulations allow students to venture where perhaps the real-life situation represent unacceptable risk to the student or others. But simulations also allow students to review, revisit and revise their preparation and practice to a real-life event. Simulations can also be used to collaborate and to provide a shared platform to problem solve. The skills2Learn site shows a wide range of practical and field-based skills that can be carried out through elearning and virtual reality simulations. The advances of modern technology and the range of mediums through which to experience sound, image, video and touch based representations has become more accessible and affordable with the rise of Google Cardboard and other VR displays. The four walls of a lecture theatre no longer need to confine “where” learning takes place.

Digital deconstruction

Within my teaching role, one area in which I felt I excelled was finding new and innovative ways to teach topics. One such way was trying to introduce coding to 6-year-olds by taking them out of the computer suite and into the kitchen, testing their given programmes (recipes) and debugging and re-coding where necessary. Chrissi Narantzi’s blog explores her use of LEGO bricks with first-year undergraduates. I love the concept of taking what essentially is a digital concept, bringing it into a real life situation or a practical analogy as it were to broaden and deepen their understanding and application of digital skills. Possible applications of this could be statistical analysis, qualitative data analysis, design, giving a presentation with slides, mindmapping, ‘cut and paste’ editing, sharing ideas via twitter, commenting on/reviewing other students’ work.

Use gamification

This is a powerful concept that I have seen bear the fruits of success with younger students. I have been fortunate on a few occasions to have met critically acclaimed Tim Rylands who really was at the forefront of gamification within education and his TED talk about teachers being creative and using games to enhance learning in other topic areas is well worth watching and extremely powerful. Other gaming concepts such as ‘levelling up’,  earning XP points and shading a progress bar could be ways in which to make aspects of your teaching engaging while also giving competition a positive element. A different Chrissi Narantzi blog  shows how a mixed reality game is used in academic development and while it does require a level of ingenuity to incorporate gaming features, it can really help give insight and make learning fun.

Final thoughts

There are a number of other digital experiences that Jisc recommend students have and I’m sure the concepts of lecture capture, online questionnaires and presenting using digital media will be covered in subsequent blogs but perhaps it is a good point to reflect on our own practise and consider how using technology within our existing delivery could enhance the learning experiences of our students further.

References

Grant, L. (2010). New media literacy: Critique vs re-design. Available at: http://dmlcentral.net/new-media-literacy-critique-vs-re-design/ (Accessed: 23 November, 2016).

Jisc (2015). Digital experiences students should have. Available at: https://digitalstudent.jiscinvolve.org/wp/files/2015/01/Digitalstudentexperiences.pdf (Accessed: 23 November, 2016).

Terms, P.I. (2016). Can you Diigo it? Available at: https://prezi.com/j82f6mbocnwb/can-you-diigo-it/ (Accessed: 23 November, 2016).

 

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