Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Andrew Comrie
Nicholas Mayes
Terry Mayes
Keith Smyth
Napier University
Craiglockhart Campus
Edinburgh
EH14 1DJ
ISBN: 978-0-902703-85-8
The responsibility for the content of these papers lies entirely with the
individual authors, and not with the conference organisers. The
proceedings of the LICK 2008 Symposium have undergone full refereeing.
www.napier.ac.uk/transform
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2
Acknowledgements
It is with gratitude that we thank all those who contributed to the LICK 2008
symposium and to the publication of the proceedings, in particular:
Supporters
The Scottish Funding Council
Dr Peter Easy, Senior Vice Principal (Academic Development) Napier University
TESEP Partners
Edinburgh’s Telford College
Carnegie College, Dunfermline
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Foreword
The idea for a symposium around learners being actively involved in the co-
creation of knowledge (LICK 2008) resulted from a programme of work
undertaken between 2005 and 2007 which explored the way in which learning
and teaching methods can be transformed through truly learner centred
pedagogy. The project, “Transforming and Enhancing the Student Experience
through Pedagogy” (TESEP)1 was funded by the Scottish Funding Council2 under
its e-learning transformation programme3 and was led by Napier University,
Edinburgh. The project involved two colleges: Edinburgh’s Telford College; and
Carnegie College (previously Lauder College).
LICK 2008 was held at a time when many universities and colleges are
changing the way they teach in order to meet the increasingly diverse needs
of their learners, to improve the quality of the student experience by
encouraging deeper learning and encouraging learners to voice their views on
teaching methods and encourage and support students to develop the
independent and collaborative skills, and other attributes, that will stand them
in good stead for future employment and for lifelong learning. These changes
are being driven by government priorities for skills development, widening
access and participation, quality enhancement and lifelong learning.
LICK 2008 was also held at a time when the educational value of what we can
loosely refer to as 'Web 2.0' technologies are being reviewed and their
potential for providing students along with their tutors with new ways to
contribute directly to sharing and developing knowledge in ways that were
never before possible are being explored.
Judging from the amount of interest that was received in this symposium
(both to attend as a delegate and/or contribute a paper to the proceedings),
there is clearly a will to change learning and teaching practices and much
interest in developing pedagogical approaches that are truly learner centred,
and which are enriched by creative and appropriate use of emerging
technologies to engage, involve and empower learners in the co-creation of
knowledge. For many, this remains a major challenge and an area where
there will continue to be debate and further research.
Andrew K Comrie
Director, TESEP
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www.napier.ac.uk/transform
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www.sfc.ac.uk
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http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningsfc.aspx
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Contents:
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Keith Smyth and Christina Mainka, Napier University
Embedding the TESEP 3E Approach in the Professional Development
of Educators: a Case Study of the MSc Blended and Online Education 98
Nicholas Mayes
The Open Plenary Discussion 174
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SECTION ONE
KEYNOTE PAPERS
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A PEDAGOGY FOR LEARNERS IN THE CO-CREATION OF
KNOWLEDGE AND THE PROBLEMS THAT CONFRONT IT IN
PRACTICE
Betty Collis
Abstract
Web 2.0 describes both a philosophy of user contribution and control and
sharing with others as well as the software tools that facilitate the philosophy.
While many are seeing the potential benefits for education the instructor may
not be aware of practical ways to implement the philosophy within a higher
education programme. This paper responds to this need by presenting a
taxonomy of learning activities that involve learners in the co-creation of content
for themselves and others. Examples from practice illustrate each node of the
taxonomy. Regardless of the relationship of such contribution-oriented activities
to Web 2.0, they can be seen as good pedagogy from both research and social
perspectives. However, despite their motivation, there are many barriers that
confront contribution-oriented learning activities from actually being carried out
in mainstream practice in higher education. These barriers relate to quality
assurance, from instructional and institutional perspectives. Can the potential for
learners in the co-creation of knowledge overcome these barriers in practice?
User contribution possibilities are common throughout all of these Web 2.0
processes. The processes represent new ways of making, sharing and using
digital documents. For higher education pedagogical approaches that involve
students making contributions that are used for learning resources by others
represent one way of applying Web 2.0 in practice. Such collaboration
approaches are being called a key emerging technology for higher education
(The New Media Consortium & the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, 2008).
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Contribution-oriented pedagogical principles are similar to Kearsley and
Shneiderman's (1998) Engagement Theory, and to Action Learning (Simons,
1999).
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Figure 1. Taxonomy of contribution-oriented learning activities
The Level 1 activities are the simplest to visualize and implement. Here the
students only need a platform that they can all contribute to in order to build a
set of artefacts that can be used for learning. Some examples are:
Level 1.1 Find and contribute:
• Appropriate Web links or references to extend the study material
• Examples of concepts or issues
Level 2 activities go a step further. After the collection of contributions has been
gathered, subsequent learning activities involve using the collection.
Levels 2.1 & 2.2 Locate/Compare & contrast among the contributed resources
• Find groupings and trends; visualize them in a concept map or other
sorting scheme
• Identify particular contributions that best illustrate or extend the study
materials
• Compare and contrast your own entry with those of others; identify
similarities and differences
• Select key themes that emerge from the personal reflections or
interviews and discuss
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Level 2.4.1 Collaboratively create a new product for one’s own classmates or
those in later generations of the same course
• Hints and tips for others studying the same materials
• Resources for peer coaching during the course
• Case studies from participants’ own work and experience to be studied
by others during the course
• Video/audio clips of interviews or examples to illustrate and extend the
study materials
Level 2.4.2 Collaboratively create a product for others outside of the course
or module
• A resource collection for practitioners, available via the Web
• A collection of information for a community or for local industry
• Materials for students in local schools to interest them in an area of
study
The Level 2.4 contributions are the most interesting educationally and socially as
they involve contributing to the learning of others beyond the boundaries of a
specific course or module (reflecting what Kearsley and Shneiderman, 1998, call
Engagement Theory). As an example, C. Collis describes how such an approach
can be a valuable tool for building partnerships between a university faculty and
local businesses (C. Collis, 2006)
Mindset-change conflicts
Students have said to us “Why don’t you just give us what we are
supposed to learn? That would be much more efficient” and even more
sharply, “It’s your job to teach us”. These sorts of comments reflect a
mindset about the role of the teacher as the one responsible for the flow
of quality-assured study materials, and the role of the students as the
ones responsible to know what is in those study materials in order to pass
a test or do an exercise.
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Management burdens
A key characteristic of contribution-type activities is that the instructor
does not know in advance what the students will contribute and thus has
to study carefully what is contributed. Thus, if instructions are not clear
and explicit about what is expected, in terms of scope, origin, criteria,
length, and presentation, the management burden can become enormous.
Assessment-related issues
Assessment is the major challenge for the instructor in a contribution-
oriented pedagogical approach. By definition, there are no pre-determined
“right” answers, but instead will be different degrees of appropriateness
on different dimensions. Students are, understandably, highly sensitive to
potential ambiguities in grading and marking.
Intellectual-property considerations
In the university setting, issues of intellectual property make the
processes relating to building on other’s contributions complicated.
Students need guidance and coaching on how to properly use and cite the
work of others, a particular problem when the cutting and pasting of work
in digital form is technically so simple.
Time burdens
A contribution-oriented approach takes more time for the instructor than a
traditional course, not necessarily more time before the course, but
certainly more time during the course. It takes more time to manage and
assess contributions that bring in new ideas and experiences than it does
to manage and assess assignments where everyone does the same
exercises and should come to the same result.
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reviews. If students feel negative about the quality of learning activities and the
way their performance is assessed, this will negatively reflect on the institution.
In addition, from an institutional perspective, there are other stakeholder
perspectives that challenge the value of student-created or contributed
resources. Those who supply universities with scientific content (library
services, textbook and academic journals publishers, academic bodies, and
researchers themselves) take great care with the accuracy and quality of the
resources they produce. The risk that students will find and produce material
that is inferior and disseminate this as evidence of the scholarly level of
discourse at the university is a major negative factor confronting the uptake of
Web 2.0 processes and underlying ways of working in higher education. Conole,
de Laat, Dillon, and Darby (2006) note that “the increasing use of user-
generated content in the form of sites such as Wikipedia is challenging the
traditional norms of the academic institutions as the key knowledge expert and
providers” (p. 102). Institutions will be predictably concerned about public
scrutiny of student contributions as well as issues relating to intellectual
property.
Considerable liaison between the instructor and the IT support services of the
institution will become necessary as long as standard tools such as the campus
VLE do not support students seeing each others’ contributions or subsequently
building upon them.
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should be and where in the Web environment it should be submitted. If it
is a group submission, make it clear who should submit on behalf of the
group. Provide a model or example. If possible, include a template to
download, fill in, and upload with the contribution.
• For complex contribution activities, split the activity up into stages and
give marks for each stage, thus three submissions of 5 points, 10 points,
and 20 points instead of one final score of 35 points. In this way, students
will better understand what you are looking for and can incorporate your
feedback into the next stage of the work. This is particularly important for
group projects.
• If an assignment involves adding to another student’s previously
submitted work, find a way to differentiate the work of the different
students and maintain both students’ names on the resulting product.
• Ensure that the students see you as a fellow learner. Pick up on ideas in
their contributions and build on them in your reflections in the course Web
site. Show that you are excited by what they find, for example new Web
links, and what they produce as new resources for others.
• Block time each week for communication, feedback and management
relating to the contribution-oriented activities.
The good news is that the tools for contributing and sharing are now easily
available at least outside of the official IT suite of the higher-education
institution. Using Web 2.0 technology to create and share one’s thoughts and
productions is a common-place activity for an increasing number of students and
also instructors. At the moment this activity generally takes place outside the
scope of formal education. The affordances of Web 2.0 tools and applications
make sharing via Web environments an attractive pastime; hopefully a tool such
as the taxonomy of learning activities presented in this paper can help match
this potential to learning-related goals. Technology should not drive pedagogy,
but a contribution-oriented pedagogy can become much more feasible and
scaleable in practice using Web 2.0 tools.
References
Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and
learning. Educause Review, March/April 2006, pp. 33-40. Accessed 20
October 2008 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0621.pdf
Collis, B. (2006, 04 September). Formal and informal learning: Bridging the gap.
Presentation at the Supporting Sustainable e-Learning Forum (SSeLF),
Edinburgh University, Scotland.
Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2008). Web 2.0 tools and processes in higher
education: Quality perspectives. Educational Media International, 45 (2), 93-
106.
Collis, B., & Moonen, J. (2001). Flexible learning in a digital world: Experiences
and expectations. London: Routledge.
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Collis, C. (2006) The Brisbane Media Map: Connecting students, industry, and
university through authentic learning. In Proceedings of the 7th International
Information Technology Based Higher Education and Training Conference,
University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Accessed 20 October
2008 from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00004718/
Conole, G. de Laat, M., Dillon, T. and Darby, J. (2006). JISC LXP: Student
experience of technologies: Final report. Accessed 20 October 2008 from
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningpedagogy/lxp
_project_final_report_nov_06.pdf
European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. (2005).
Standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher
Education Area. Helsinki, Finland. Accessed 20 October 2008 from
http://www.enqa.eu/files/BergenReport210205.pdf
Howe, J. (2006, December 25). Your Web, your way. Time Magazine, Vol. 168,
No, 26, pp. 60-63.
Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, G. (1998). Engagement theory: A framework for
technology-based teaching and learning. Educational Technology, 38 (5), 20-
24.
Kynäslahti, H., Verterinen, O., Lipponen, L., Vahitivuouri-Hänninen, S., & Tella,
S. (2008). Towards volitional media literacy through Web 2.0. Educational
Technology, 48(5), 3-9.
New Media Consortium & the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2008). The horizon
report: 2008 edition. Accessed 20 October 2008 from
http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf
Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing
just one. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13.
Simons, P. R. J. (1999). Three ways to learn in a new balance. Lifelong
Learning in Europe, IV (1), 14-23.
Wenger, E. (2005). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Accessed 21
October 2008 from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm
World Bank Group, (2003). Lifelong learning in the global knowledge economy.
Accessed 16 May 2005 from
http://www1.worldbank.org/education/lifelong_learning/lifelong_learning_GK
E.asp
Zurita, L. (2006, 10-12 April). Learning in multicultural environments: Learners
as co-designers. Paper presented at Networked Learning 2006, Lancaster,
UK. Accessed 21 October 2008 from
http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/past/nlc2006/abstracts/pdfs
/P26%20Zurita.pdf
17
PERSPECTIVES ON CO-CREATING KNOWLEDGE WITH LEARNERS
Abstract
What does it mean for learners to be involved in the co-creation of knowledge?
This paper explores different interpretations of this phrase and identifies
implications for research and practice. Firstly, it is contextualised in terms of
different theories of learning, leading to a distinction being drawn between
pedagogical and political implications. Pedagogical implications raise questions
about what is learnt and how efficiently; this includes questions about the role of
learners and teachers. Political questions focus on the kinds of knowledge valued
in the context of higher education, and the way in which this includes or
excludes practices. A case is made for the continued value of disciplinary
knowledge. The paper concludes by differentiating between problems to be
solved and issues that teachers will have to continue to consider.
Introduction
In this paper, the idea of learners co-constructing knowledge is examined.
Firstly, the epistemological assumptions and implication of the phrase are
considered. Next, the practical, pedagogic implications are discussed. These are
differentiated from political implications, concerning the status of knowledge in
higher education and the consequence inclusion or exclusion of groups and
practices. Finally, the paper concludes by identifying the implications of this
discussion for teachers and researchers.
Epistemological background
Current interest in learners actively producing knowledge is widespread; it is
reflected in writing about pedagogy (Mayes & de Freitas, 2007), has formed the
foundation for movements such as problem-based learning (e.g. Savin-Baden,
2000) and has been strongly associated with the development of what has been
described as Web 2.0 (e.g. Barnes & Tynan, 2007).
However, the idea that learners are involved in knowledge creation is not new. It
has long been the hallmark of social accounts of learning, and is reflected in
many of the central texts in this tradition. For example, it formed a foundational
assumption in Vygotsky’s work:
Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the
social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people
(interpsychological), and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This
applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the
formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations
between human individuals. (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57)
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Although claims processors may appear to work individually, and though their
jobs are primarily defined and organized individually, processors become
important to each other. […] They act as a resource to each other,
exchanging information, making sense of situations, sharing new tricks and
new ideas, as well as keeping each other company and spicing up each
other’s working days. (Wenger, 1997, pp. 46-47)
More radically, the same idea can be seen in the writing of educators such as
Freire (1970), for whom dialogic, problem-posing approaches to education were
seen as a necessary alternative to the ‘banking’ metaphor that he believed was
perpetuating inequalities in society.
The concept of practice connotes doing, but not just doing in and of itself. It
is doing in an historical and social context that gives structure and meaning
to what we do. In this sense, practice is always social practice. (Wenger,
1987, p47)
But this creates a problem for the phrase, “learners in the co-construction of
knowledge”. From a social constructivist perspective, learners are always co-
constructors of knowledge, because this is what ‘knowledge’ means. In effect,
the phrase is a tautology; it loses its power to celebrate a particular kind of
learning, or discriminate between practices that might be thought of as ‘good’ or
‘bad’ approaches to engendering knowledge. Learners remain involved in a
process of co-creating knowledge whether they are involved in a lively debate,
copying text from a board or staring out of the window during a dull lecture.
Exactly what they are learning may differ in each of these cases, of course;
Wenger makes this point about the claims processors in his case study (1998).
When instructed to use a form they cannot understand, they learnt that they are
not a central part of the organisation they work for. Their learning is expressed
in terms of their professional identity, and in particular, in terms of their
exclusion from particular kinds of community or involvement. Nonetheless, the
process through which they learn this is still a social one.
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Pedagogies of co-construction
Even though, from a socio-constructivist position, learners may always be co-
constructing knowledge, the kinds of knowledge they are building in different
contexts will be different. They may also find it easier to build particular kinds of
knowledge in some contexts than in others. This gives rise to practical questions
about which kinds of social contexts might be best at supporting particular
learners as they try to develop their understanding or ability in some way.
Arguably, there are two ways in which these questions might be answered:
analytically and empirically.
Laurillard goes on to argue that learning will be impeded if some of these steps
are unsupported, and provides an analysis of different media in terms of these
actions. This analysis is decontextualised, based on what could be described as
ideal types rather than historical cases; so for example, lectures are classified as
supporting teachers’ descriptions of conceptions, even though specific lecturers’
practices might involve more participatory activities.
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Empirical assessments of co-construction
An alternative to the analytic approach is to focus on empirical questions. This is
not to suggest that empirical work is opposed to theory; on the contrary, any
empirical work instantiates a theory, whether that theory is made explicit or not.
However, it can be seen as differing in its orientation to theory. Broadly, the
kinds of analysis described above could be understood as applying theories or
models to plans or examples of practice, whereas empirical work is more
commonly oriented to building or refining theories or models from such
examples.
There are many instances where this process is made visible, and empirical work
serves to develop our understanding of social practices and their consequences
(Cook, 2002). It is self evident that not all kinds of teaching result in the same
things being learnt equally well by all students. For example, Vygotsky (1978)
introduce the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development, describing the tasks
which a child could not perform on their own but which they could with the help
of a more able peer. This idea has led to studies of ‘scaffolding’ learning,
introducing structures or systems that can support learners. One line of research
within this has been the idea of timely interventions in learning, in the form of
contingent teaching (Wood, 2001). The consequence of this is advocacy of a
particular pedagogic approach on the basis of an empirically-developed
theoretical model.
Such studies usually require some performance of learning as the basis for
judgements about the value of a particular approach or intervention. Often, this
is performance on a test or for an assignment. But this is not the only way of
measuring learning. Assessment may be a particularly important influence on
what students learn (Biggs, 1999), but if it is to remain valid, it should reflect
what is taught. If one accepts that changes in the way students are taught has
any qualitative effect on what they learn, then arguably, principled changes in
teaching should be followed by related changes in assessment.
Equally, it may be that some other measure than test performance is deemed to
be the most appropriate way to demonstrate learning. For example, adopting
Wenger’s perspective (1998), people would be deemed to have learnt particular
social practices successfully once they are accepted as a competent member of a
relevant community of practice. From this perspective, questions of retention
and progression might be better indications of learning than performance on a
standardised but decontextualised test. Similarly, much recent government
policy in the UK has advocated the importance of student motivation (e.g. DfES,
2005:4, emphasising motivation as a way of engaging “‘hard to reach’
learners”), and almost by default, many educational evaluations focus on
whether students liked some new approach or other.
This, however, raises issues that cannot be addressed pedagogically. What is the
most appropriate measure to use when trying to determine the effectiveness of
some pedagogic intervention? At a fundamental level, this calls into question
what counts as learning, and knowledge, and how we come to judge a learner’s
claims to knowledge as legitimate. It is this issue of legitimacy that will be taken
up in the next section.
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The politics of co-construction
Considering how best to judge the appropriateness of particular pedagogic
approaches raises the question of what learners are learning. This in turn has
implications for what is accepted as evidence of learning.
It seems unlikely that viewing students in this way will result in them being
active co-constructors of valued knowledge.
It is also worth noting the ways in which technology has been implicated in this
structuring of the system of higher education. The Dearing report, which has
been identified as one of the key policy documents about technology and higher
education in recent years (Conole et al, 2007), provides an interesting example
in this respect.
The new interactive media, offering adaptive feedback and student control have
the potential to support independent study, but only if fully developed, tested
and maintained. […] Many staff would seek to spend some of their time on
development of learning materials, because these will enshrine the core of their
teaching. […] IT methods must achieve their promise of greater efficiency both
by improving the quality of student learning, and by amortising the cost of
development over large student numbers. (NCIHE, 1997: Appendix 2)
This account seems curiously detached from the pedagogic discussions outlined
earlier; an economic rationale dominates the discussion and leads to advocacy of
resource-based learning as the best hope for a system faced with ever-
diminishing levels of resource per student. There is no suggestion that this is a
22
necessary evil or is second-best in some way; indeed the almost religious
connotations of teachers ‘enshrining’ their knowledge in resources portrays this
as a positive and virtuous way forwards.
However, closer reading of the report reveals a less desirable picture (Smith &
Oliver, 2002). In relation to technology, students are portrayed as passive,
except at the point at which they choose a course of study. (Courses are
described primarily in terms of costs and outcomes, in line with the wider
economic argument in the report.) Once a choice has been made, they are
‘developed’, but are not talked about as being active in this process. The
implication is that their education is something done to them by higher
education. Moreover, lecturers are not associated with teaching at all, except as
something that they will have to give up in order to focus on developing high-
quality resources. A gulf is created between teacher and learner; no sense is
given of how this very remote mediation can be overcome to foster a meaningful
sense of ‘co-construction’.
This line of planning was taken still further in the business case for the UK’s e-
University:
Any sense of relationship between teacher and learner is stripped away (because
it is too costly), the only sense of interaction being at several removes, via
email, and without much sense given of opportunities for dialogue.
It is hardly surprising that recent writing about Web 2.0 technologies – the
“social web” – carry with them a sense of optimism and interest in rekindling the
social elements of higher education (e.g. Franklin & van Harmelen, 2007).
However, it would be all too easy to assume that simply providing social
software will solve the social problem; the situation is likely to be far harder to
resolve than this.
It is clearly not enough just to make such technologies available, nor even to
exhort students to make use of them. Instead, if the situation represented in the
policies above is to be avoided, it will require reconsidering how we view and
treat students.
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Creating structures of inequality
Positioning teachers as information providers and learners as needing
information is pedagogically dubious; learning is obviously more complicated
than simply consuming – or merely accessing – information. However,
positioning learners as somehow in ‘deficit’ is only part of the problem. The root
of the problem lies in the systematic separation of teachers from students in the
first place.
This situation could easily be avoided. Changing the figure’s labels – for
example, to ‘person one’ and ‘person two’ – would show a difference in what
each of the people involved in some example of learning needs to do without
fixing them into one position or the other. Nor would there be any need to
complicate the figure by trying to incorporate other students as a special case.
Even treating the terms as descriptions of practices, rather than people – so that
individuals could swap between them at different times, depending on the
situation – would be sufficient to avoid commitment to an essential division
between ‘us’ and ‘them’ that then needs to be bridged.
What this example illustrates is a problem with how our definitions and
assumptions have shaped our understanding of current practices. It would not
be necessary to involve learners in the co-creation of knowledge if they had not
previously been excluded from this by definition.
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in their situation and then to support them as needed in their engagement with
these issues. He explains these approaches in terms of their tendency to
‘humanise’ or ‘dehumanise’ – to treat people as capable and active or else
somehow as less than fully human, and in particular, as less capable than the
person acting as a teacher.
25
nature; it is unlikely that two academics even in the same field would articulate
and model such processes in exactly the same way. (Haggis, 2006)
Clearly, not all forms of knowledge are equally valued in higher education. It has
long been recognised, for example, that disciplinary communities judge what
counts as knowledge in different (if sometimes overlapping) ways (e.g. Hirst &
Peters, 1970). Yet such traditions manage to co-existing and respect each
others’ differences, even if controversies and disputes exist (Becher, 1989).
Collectively, they also face common issues in deciding which kinds of knowledge
claims and knowledge-building practices they feel should be permitted within a
formal educational context. Is ‘remixing’ resources an example of “copy and
paste literacy” or an act of plagiarism (Perkel, 2006)? Does a participative, Web
2.0 model of knowledge building value ‘common sense’ and ‘wisdom of the
crowd’ over principled and disciplined knowledge in an inappropriate way
(Franklin & van Harmelen, 2007)? Should there be differences in the way that
students use technology in formal education compared to how they are
comfortable using it at home (Selwyn, 2006)?
Questions such as these illustrate how disciplinary scholars are actively policing
the boundaries around what they are willing to accept as ‘knowledge’ within their
domain. This has obvious implications for how learners may act and what
resources they may draw upon as they try to co-construct knowledge with
26
others in a formal educational context. However it must be recognised that these
are important questions. Sometimes it is necessary to distinguish between the
kinds of practices that are appropriate inside and outside of formal education
(e.g. Lankshear and Knobel, 2004). If disciplinary knowledge gives useful
purchase on the topics and problems it pertains to, then it is important for the
whole enterprise of higher education that it can continue to do so in a way that
has integrity. Having integrity is not, in itself, the issue. The problem arises
when disciplinary communities can offer no acceptable defence for their choice
to exclude particular kinds of knowledge work, either because the reaction is
unjustified or because the alternative has not been adequately considered.
Moreover, as practices of knowledge construction continue to develop within
societies, disciplinary communities will have to carry on debating the boundaries
they create, the practices they exclude and the people whom they permit to see
themselves as outsiders as a consequence of this.
Conclusions
As can be seen, consideration of the idea of co-constructing knowledge with
learners produces several challenges. At the level of epistemology, the phrase is
relatively unproblematic, but gives little purchase on precisely what learners
learn or how best they go about learning it. Pedagogically, matters are more
complicated, in that questions arise as to which approaches are better than
others in achieving particular ends, with conclusions being produced either
analytically or empirically, or both. Politically, however, the phrase raises several
controversies. There are questions about what learners should be learning in the
first place; the legitimacy of different approaches to co-constructing knowledge
(for example, when something counts as plagiarism); and about the differences
that are assumed to exist between people who are teaching and learning.
Arguably, it will be possible empirically to claim that progress has been made in
terms of the pedagogic questions. Particular theoretical perspectives or
measures of ability can be used to judge levels of success over time, even if
debate persists about whether this theory or measure is the most appropriate
one to be using. The same cannot be said of political issues, where positions
about what should count as a credible way of producing and claiming knowledge
need to be taken and defended. Political issues will require revisiting over time
to ensure that positions remain appropriate.
27
References
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world: learning in a Web 2.0 millenium. Alt-J, 15 (3), 189-200.
Becher, T. (1989) Academic Trbies and Territories: Intellectual Enquiry and the
Culture of Disciplines. Buckingham: SRHE/Open University Press.
Biggs, J. (1999) Teaching for Quality Learning at University. Buckingham: SRHE/
Open University Press.
Brookfield, S. (2007) Diversifying curriculum as the practice of repressive
tolerance. Teaching in Higher Education, 12 (5-6), 557-568.
Conole, G., Smith, J. & White, S. (2007) A critique of the impact of policy and
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Learning Research, 36-52. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
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Interactive Media in Education, 2002 (5). www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/5
DfES – Department for Education and Skills (2005) Harnessing Technology:
Transforming learning and children’s services.
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HigherEducation.pdf
Franklin, T. & van Harmelen, M. (2007) Web 2.0 for content for learning and
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Freire, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Gadotti, M. (1994) Reading Paulo Freire: his life and work. New York: State
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Gulati, S. (1998) Compulsory participation in online discussions: is this
constructivism or normalisation of learning? Innovations in Education and
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29
30
SECTION TWO
PAPERS
31
ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES FOR DEVELOPING STUDENT
AUTONOMY AND PEER LEARNING
Abstract
This paper discusses the educational potential of alternate reality games (ARGs),
a relatively new game format that takes place both online and in the real world
over a number of weeks, and combines narrative and puzzles to develop a
collaborative community. In this paper, first the concept of ARGs are described,
including their history and composition, and their potential pedagogic benefits
are discussed in relation to constructivism, student autonomy and peer learning.
Then the paper provides a case study of the Alternate Reality Games for
Orientation, Socialisation and Induction (ARGOSI) project at Manchester
Metropolitan University, which used an ARG for the development of digital
literacy skills. Finally, the paper concludes by highlighting some of the potential
challenges of using ARGs in education.
Introduction
This paper will provide an overview of the concept of alternate reality games
(ARGs) and discuss their pedagogic potential in higher education. A case study
of the Alternate Reality Games for Orientation, Socialisation and Induction
(ARGOSI) project, which developed an ARG for students at Manchester
Metropolitan University, will be described and some emerging findings
presented. Finally, the paper will conclude with a consideration of some of the
practicalities and issues of using alternate reality games for teaching and
learning in higher education.
Alternate reality games are a comparatively recent genre of game; the first fully-
formed ARG is widely considered to be a game called The Beast that was created
in 2001 as a promotional vehicle for the Steven Spielberg movie AI (Hon, 2005).
Alternate reality games have been described in web magazine CNET as “an
obsession-inspiring genre that blends real-life treasure hunting, interactive
storytelling, video games and online community” (Borland, 2005). Michael
Smith, the CEO of Mind Candy, creators of PerplexCity, one of the best known
and most popular ARGs in the UK, describes the genre as ‘part story, part game
and part puzzle’ (Brightman, 2006).
ARGs provide a fictional game world and narrative that is interwoven with real
people, places and events. They engage players with a series of interactive and
collaborative challenges and puzzles that contribute to finding out more about
the storyline as it unfolds. Martin and colleagues (2006) describe this interwoven
nature of the real, online and fantasy world, saying that ARGs “take the
substance of everyday life and weave it into narratives that layer additional
meaning, depth, and interaction upon the real world. The contents of these
narratives constantly intersect with actuality, but play fast and loose with fact,
sometimes departing entirely from the actual or grossly warping it” (p6). A
crucial element in the design of alternate reality games is the notion that ‘this is
not a game’: an alternate reality game will often not advertise itself as a ‘game’
and it is up to the players to distinguish between reality and fiction. There is no
explicit distinction between the real world and the game world, sites within the
32
game will often be indistinguishable from genuine sites, and the creators of the
game often go to great lengths to ensure that they are anonymous and uphold
the secrecy of the game.
Stewart (2006), lead writer of The Beast, suggests four defining characteristics
of ARGs: that they have an ongoing storyline, which is broken up and the
players need to assemble over time, piecing together the narrative from multiple
sources as the game unfolds; that they make use of many different media types
to act as a delivery mechanism for the game, such as print, telephone, blogging,
social networking sites, email, web pages, radio, television, advertising, and
actual people; that they provide a collaborative environment in which players
are required to cooperate to solve the puzzles (either because the puzzles
explicitly require more than one person or because they are so hard and cover
so many domains of expertise that it is unlikely that one individual will be able to
solve it alone); and that they create an environment where the audience interact
with the game world and are responsible for shaping it – the game itself changes
over time in response to the activities of the players.
It has also been argued that essentially, there are three integrated components
in alternate reality games: exposition, interaction and challenge (Phillips, 2006).
Exposition is the story, plot, and events that drive the game, the characters and
their motivations, and they world they live in. This narrative is presented both
online and in the real world, using real people and places with fictional events
overlaid. Interaction takes place in the form of a dynamic dialogue between the
players and the game characters and this creates the ability for players to shape
the game world by creating ongoing mythology around the game, by
communicating both with other players and with characters within the game
(this can also be carried out through a variety of media including chat, email,
telephone, messaging and live events). Challenge provides the game-play: the
puzzles, ciphers, riddles and collective achievements that provide purposeful
activity to the story and create an ongoing motivator and continued immersion
in the game world.
Since their inception, there have been many types of alternate reality game
produced, including promotional, grassroots (games that are produced as fan
sites or works of fiction for their own sake), productised (i.e. commercial),
single-player, and educational (Barlow, 2006). They have been used to advertise
products, films, computer games, music and television series. Although much of
the most significant ARG development has occurred with developers creating
games as viral marketing initiatives, they have parallels with other genres,
drawing inspiration from literature (in particular the adventure game books
popular in the 1980s and interactive online fiction), movies, urban treasure
hunts, internet hoaxes, role-playing games (RPGs), and massively multiplayer
online role-playing games (MMORPGs). ARGs are niche and generally appeal to a
small proportion of the population, but those individuals who do become
involved typically show extremely high engagement with the game, giving up
large amounts of time and going to extreme lengths to get involved and
complete the challenges.
33
The pedagogic benefits of ARGs
In recent years there has been rapidly increased interest in the potential of
computer games for learning, primarily for children but also in the context of
adults in higher education. The increasingly diverse student population has led to
a rethink about ways of teaching and learning that are appropriate, and
computer games can offer many pedagogic benefits. While they can be
motivational for some students, not all HE students will find games intrinsically
motivating and, in fact, many perceive such games as a ‘waste of time’.
However, if designed and used purposefully, when students are convinced of the
efficacy, a key feature of games is their ability to create engagement, a factor
that contributes to effective learning, through compelling stories within
immersive environments, with high levels of interaction and feedback.
34
Moseley (2008) presents seven pedagogic benefits of alternate reality games:
Alternate reality games have an additional advantage, in that they can be easily
modified or changed to accommodate a different overarching storyline that may
be more appropriate for different age groups, locations or subject disciplines. As
they are based on a series of challenges, the challenges can be loosely coupled
with the overall story and different challenges used depending on the learning
outcomes required – in effect it is possible to create a whole library of challenges
that relate to learning outcomes in different subject areas. The whole ARG model
easily lends itself to re-use and re-purposing, particularly in the areas of key
learning skills, such as information literacy, digital literacy, critical thinking, and
creativity, and skills for supporting the development of students as autonomous
learners (e.g. goal setting, confidence building, motivation, development of
identity as a learner).
ARGs also have the potential to be valuable tools for supporting student
autonomy because they can be structured and run over several weeks or
months, and they can support the use and gradual removal of scaffolding and
increased difficulty. Players have to manage their own time during game play,
fitting in physical events and activities with online ones to suit themselves. The
collaborative community around the game is self-directing and players have to
choose how and with whom they work on particular challenges; many challenges
35
are open-ended (e.g. the creation of artefacts) so it is entirely up to the players
to be creative about how they approach them.
Alternate reality games also provide a range of opportunities for facilitating peer
learning, They start to blur the line between player and game designer, because
participants are involved throughout in shaping the story and contributing to the
narrative in a way that goes beyond simply ‘playing the game’. A common
feature of ARGs is also their ability to create self-sustaining communities with
established players supporting and mentoring new players, which could have the
potential within higher education to provide a framework for peer mentoring, for
example by second-year students running a game for first years.
A current issue in higher education is that of student retention and the link to
effective induction. Formal induction activities, such as library skills, tend to be
short, run in inflexible face-to-face slots, and, because they are run at the start
of the year necessarily use tasks that are not contextualised for students, and
for which they have no perceived need at that time. Socialisation and orientation
activities, which are commonly based around pubs, do not always suit students
from different backgrounds and cultures. The ARGOSI project aimed to provide
an engaging and purposeful alternative to traditional methods of introducing
students to university life, providing a context for exploring Manchester and
meeting other new students. While it was hypothesised that ARGs could be used
to teach a whole range of curriculum-based learning outcomes, for this project
the pilot also focused on a single area of induction content – library and
information skills – as a proof of concept. It was not intended that the ARG
developed would ever take the place of the traditional student induction but that
it will provide an alternative aimed at students whose needs are not necessarily
being met by the induction model currently provided.
36
of ‘curriculum’ challenges that are directly mapped to the learning outcomes
from the library induction and integrate peripherally into the main story. The
rationale behind this loose coupling of narrative challenges and content
challenges is so that a modular approach can be adopted and different content
challenge sets produced and used depending on the context in which the game
is deployed.
The testing of this design model is one of the research outputs of the project,
which will also be considering whether an Alternate Reality Game is an effective
and appropriate medium for enabling students to meet the intended learning
outcomes of the library and information skills induction, create social networks
during the induction period, improve their confidence in navigating the city and
university campus, and engage in, and enjoy, the induction experience. Other
issues that will be explored include evaluating the success of the development
process for an educational ARG and the cost-effectiveness of the project overall.
37
Conclusions
Although there are clearly benefits to the notion of using alternate reality games
in education, there are also developmental, logistic and pedagogic challenges
that need to be addressed in order to create and manage a successful
educational ARG in the context of university education.
Fundamental to all ARGs is a compelling plotline that is sustainable and will act
as a backbone for the game, drawing players in by stimulating curiosity and
moving them on as the story progresses. Although this narrative may develop
over time it must be robust and flexible enough to accommodate variations to
the story while retaining a degree of internal logic. In the case of the ARGOSI an
expert in digital narrative was brought in to outline the types of plotline that
might be suitable and had a critical iterative cycle of plot development in order
to produce the final story. In addition to a strong story ARGs require many real
world and online assets to facilitate game play, for example ARGOSI required
the creation a challenge web site, character blogs, and fake websites used as
plot devices, as well as numerous prop documents including diary pages, maps
and engineers’ drawings. The assets must be plausible as they help to drive the
game forward and can be time consuming to produce and require the input of
someone with graphic design skills.
From a logistic point of view it would be difficult to run an ARG with too few or
too many participants. The game needs a critical mass of players in order to
make meaningful collaboration possible and to allow the social network of
players to develop naturally (with the ultimate goal that it will become self-
supporting). One of the emerging issues from the ARGOSI project is recruiting
players and maintaining prolonged engagement over the period of the game in
such a way that established players have enough to do while new players are
not overwhelmed. There are also issues with too many players as during the
running time a core team are needed to monitor the game interaction, reveal
clues and pieces of the story, create blog postings and interact with the players
in many other ways; if there were too many participants this would require a
level of administration that could not necessarily be delivered.
The ARG-like nature of the ViolaQuest game created as part of the ARGOSI
project had to be compromised in a number of ways so that it could be used
safely and effectively within an educational setting. One of the key features of
grassroots ARGs is the idea of ‘this is not a game’ where the boundary between
real life and game play is intentionally blurred, and where players are sometime
unsure about whether artefacts are part of the game or not. Although ViolaQuest
38
uses many virtual and real world gaming spaces over the course of the game,
players are never in doubt about whether they were still playing or not, and it is
clear that the game is associated with a particular educational institution. The
provision of a safe and accessible learning environment was considered more
important that adhering to the ‘this is not a game’ aesthetic. There is a related
concern that it can be argued that the appeal of ARGs is that they are outside
the mainstream, and by legitimising them in a university context educators are
in danger of removing their very essence and indeed the fun of participation.
A final point is the relative newness of the ARG genre in terms of academic
research and the lack of papers published in the area. If they are to be
considered as an effective pedagogic tool in the field of higher education, and
achieve mainstream acceptance, it is important that their effectiveness in terms
of learning and student engagement is rigorously researched by the academic
community.
References
Barlow, N. (2006). Types of ARG. In A. Martin, B. Thomson and T. Chatfield
(Eds) 2006 Alternate Reality Games White Paper. International Game
Developers Association.
Borland, J. (2005). Blurring the line between games and life. CNET news.com
[Available online]
http://ecousticscnet.com.com/Blurring+the+line+between+games+and+life/
2100-1024_3-5590956.html (accessed 12 October 2008).
Brightman, J. (2008). Perplexcity – the real life MMO. Gamedaily. [Available
online] http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/perplex-city-the-real-
life-mmo/68538/?biz=1 (accessed 12 October 2008).
Ducheneaut, N. and Moore, R. J. (2005) More than just ‘XP’: learning social skills
in massively multiplayer online games. Interactive Technology & Smart
Education, 2, 89–100.
Hon, A. (2005). The rise of ARGs. Gamasutra. [Available online]
http://gamasutra.com/features/20050509/hon_01.shtml (accessed 12
October 2008).
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning
and Development. New Jersey, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Lee, T. (2006). This is not a game: alternate reality gaming and its potential for
learning FutureLab. [Available online]
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/
39
Martin, A. and Chatfield, T. (2006). Introduction. In A. Martin, B. Thomson and
T. Chatfield (Eds) 2006 Alternate Reality Games White Paper. International
Game Developers Association.
Moseley, A. (2008). An alternative reality for Higher Education? Lessons to be
learned from online reality games. Paper presented at ALT-C 2008, Leeds,
UK.
Phillips, A. (2006). Methods and mechanics. In A. Martin, B. Thomson and T.
Chatfield (Eds) 2006 Alternate Reality Games White Paper. International
Game Developers Association.
Piatt, K. (2007). studentquest 2006 a.k.a. ‘Who is Herring Hale?’. Summary
Project Report: University of Brighton.
Stewart, S. (2006). Alternate Reality Games. [ Available online]
http://www.seanstewart.org/interactive/args/
Whitton, N. (2007) An Investigation into the Potential of Collaborative Computer
Game-Based Learning in Higher Education. PhD Thesis. [online]
www.playthinklearn.net
40
CO-CREATING A PROGRAMME: THE MSC IN E-LEARNING AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
This paper considers the interaction of students and tutors as the basis of the
emergent, or co-created, nature and outcomes of the Masters Programme in E-
Learning in the University of Edinburgh’s School of Education1.
This variety presents first of all a very profound problem for the design of the
courses making up the Programme, but also a very real strength.
Because of the vast array of experience and knowledge represented in the
group, the role of the designer of a course, and also that of the tutor who brings
1
http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/e-learning/
41
that design to life (often and ideally the same person in our distributed and
interdisciplinary team), is most usefully seen as that of an orchestrator of
experience and interaction (Caine & Caine, 1994, p. 5). While all of the courses
encourage a period of introductory social communication in the interest of
promoting group cohesion, and of putting people at their ease within the group
such that they will feel able to engage with the activities which follow, the very
act of setting forth one’s background experiences, professional needs, and
personal aspirations establishes a rich intellectual marketplace (the notion of
“bazaar” might convey it better) in which the curriculum of the Programme can
constantly be examined, elaborated and redefined.
The general role of the tutor is that of participant and facilitator, learning along
with the students. Different courses model different approaches to the design of
the online learning experience, as individual designers and tutors come to
develop their own online voices (Spector, 2007) and cultivate a presence within
the virtual space of the course (Garrison and Anderson, 2003). The Programme
has provided us with fascinating opportunities to explore just what it is that the
online tutor has to do (Macleod and Ross, 2007).
42
are, of course, frequently reversed, and represent more a matter of the location
of responsibility than of the outworking of things on any given day. It is the
responsibility of the students to bring practical and intellectual curiosity, and it is
the responsibility of the teachers to ensure that learning takes place. But the
expectation is that students will contribute resources for one another’s learning
as will the teacher. These resources will come in the form of discussion, and the
formulation of searching questions, in the telling of stories about experience, or
in reference to valued reading materials. The interactive nature of such
exchanges makes it highly likely that the arrival of a particular insight offered by
one, will fall into a “teachable moment” (Stewart, 1993) being experienced by
another.
That said, it seems to be the case that there is often a pattern of convergent
evolution; that important issues will out, and that one thing does have a habit of
following another. Students from one cohort would most likely recognise the
journey that another cohort was taking. In addition, however unconventional we
may feel our Programme to be, we are located within a conventional higher
education institution, where students are assessed by tutors. We have tried to
mitigate this in part by inviting students on some courses to nominate additional
assessment criteria for their assignments, which can take the form of a
traditional or web-based essay, a wiki or blog, or any format that students can
imagine and persuade their tutor to assess. In past years assignments have
been presented as a Second Life2 “sky box”, a Socratic dialogue, and a
multimedia web essay, to name but a few.
However, to speak lightly of learning tasks does mask the important fact that
some of these tasks are assessed, and that assessment contributes to the final
grade awarded to the student. The tension between the flexibility that we
encourage students to feel they have in taking their own path, and the
assessments which constitute unavoidable markers along that path, has on one
2
http://secondlife.com/
43
memorable occasion resulted in a difficult but interesting event between student
and tutor on a course exploring game-based learning, where the student
undertook within an assessed blog space to induct his tutor without warning into
an alternate reality game of his own devising (see Macleod and Knock, 2007).
The tutor’s difficulty in deciding how to mark this innovative piece of work which
nonetheless definitely did not meet the assessment criteria for the assignment
brought home for us the limits of our, and our students’, freedom in relation to
assessment. Though this was a unique event in our experience of the
Programme so far, it does highlight some of the challenges we experience when
we try to make co-creation a basic principle of our pedagogy.
We see the VLE as a jumping off place as well as a destination however, beyond
which we encourage students to explore the educational relevance of a wide
range of Web tools, and especially those that we see as contributing to the ethos
of the Programme. As students progress through the Programme, they have the
opportunity to work extensively with wikis, social networking, virtual worlds,
social bookmarking, mapping, and many new and emerging technologies.
A primary example is the case of the weblog, or blog3. The foundation course is
structured around an assessed reflective blog, which is worth 50% of the final
mark for the course. The blog encourages students to experiment with ideas and
voice as they engage in a semester-long conversation with their tutor. Tutors
comment regularly on blog posts throughout the semester, and then give the
student a mark at the end based on the blog’s success in meeting the
assessment criteria (drawn from the postgraduate common marking scheme).
As students’ experience of using their blog increases, and they become more
3
For our weblog we use a locally installed instance of the educationally oriented
social networking system ELLG.
http://elgg.org/
44
confident with the medium, we expect and encourage them to open their writing
to a wider audience of trusted colleagues. Importantly, the growing of the blog,
and the widening of the circle of readers, can be under the control of the blog’s
author right up to the point at which the blog is opened to the world at large.
Even then, control of publication is such that some materials can remain private,
and others retained for access by only a select group.
Some uses of technology are in support of social cohesion within the group. We
use the social networking site Facebook among ourselves as a Programme team,
and invite out students to join us. While there is no compulsion to participate,
we feel that our students need to be aware of the social networking
phenomenon, and the place that such resources may play in the lives and social
practices of their own students and colleagues. Increasingly however, we find
that Programme participants have already established a presence in Facebook
before they join us. We also introduce and encourage the use of instant
messaging systems such as Microsoft Messenger or Skype. In some courses and
at some times we use, or see used, these tools for the express purpose of
engaging in a synchronous tutorial conversation, but more often the
manifestation of presence provided by such tools supports light-touch sociability
and conviviality, and opportunities for convocation and consultation. This is the
distance programme’s substitute for bumping into one another in the corridor.
The technology of discourse and debate has classically been the asynchronous,
threaded discussion forum. Through this medium students are encouraged to
compare notes on their readings, to explore their understanding of what they
have read, and to seek guidance from tutors and peers. A group blog has also
been used for this purpose.
A wiki provides an ideal medium for students distanced from one another to
engage in collaborative writing and the co-creation of understanding around a
topic. When a course-initiated project calls for this interaction we facilitate the
use of a particular wiki tool that we have identified (PBWiki 4). But we see that
students are increasingly selecting and using their own preferred tools in support
of ad hoc collaborations and communications, elaborating their own digital modi
operandi. The rhetoric of “smart mobs” seems particularly apposite here
(Rheingold, 2003). A number of students have displayed their creativity by, in
response to a course assignment, demonstrating how the functionality of a
conventional virtual learning environment can be recreated for the support of a
small group of learners by the judicious lacing together of freely available web-
based element. This creativity has been particularly manifest in the context of
our course on digital game-based learning, where students have constructed
elaborate and engaging exploratory learning experiences for their colleagues
based on existing web sites and services.
45
been established, the students are encouraged to participate in the wider
“flocking” behaviour that such collaborative tools make possible.
Conclusion
We have learned a great deal from our students, about the nature of learning
and teaching in theory and in practice, about the conduct and possibilities of an
online programme of study, and about the various organisational, pedagogic,
technical and social dimensions of supporting the online learner. The challenge
will be to build on these foundations without loss to the openness and flexibility
of what we hope to be an innovative programme, and a stimulating and creative
working environment for students and tutors – co-researchers – alike.
Evidences are that we can achieve this successfully and legally within the
structures and assessment regulations of even an ancient institution.
References
Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for
education. (Bristol: JISC). Retrieved: 21 September 2007.
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Macleod, H.A. and Knock, A. (2007) Mischief, power and play: when to pull the
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Perseus Publishing.
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47
THE NATURE OF E-MODERATION IN ONLINE LEARNING
ENVIRONMENTS
ABSTRACT
Recent publications in the field of e-learning highlight the importance of the
“moderator’s” approach to developing students’ online learning. They identify
that the major challenges for online teachers arise from the diversity of roles
which moderators are required to undertake. However, little is reported
about the roles e-moderators actually adopt in different learning contexts, and
how these range between ‘teaching’ and ‘facilitating’. This paper focuses on the
ways in which different e-moderators in higher education approach online
learning with students. It reports the findings of a recently completed PhD study,
which set out to observe, describe and analyse the distinct interactions between
learners and e-moderators in four case studies taken from two research settings.
A grounded theory approach was used to analyse and interpret the data. This
generated a comparative insight into diverse moderation practices, and the
consequent actions and reactions of e-moderators and students. In this study e-
moderation was found to be directly influenced by the programme aims and the
design of the students’ tasks, which informed the purpose of moderator-student
interaction. Furthermore the observed pre-established relationships between the
various actors involved in the discussions directly influenced the style of
moderator’s intervention and the ways in which students responded. Herein,
distinct differences in relation to the nature of e-moderation in online discussions
were identified and discussed.
BACKGROUND
Teaching and learning in online or blended asynchronous learning networks
(ALN) has been one of the main focuses of educational practice and research
over the last fifteen years. The primary goal of research in the field of ALN was
the process of learning and the pedagogy that supports effective learning
(Benbucan-Fich, Hiltz, and Harasim, 2005). The process of learning and the
pedagogy in an ALN have been examined by a number of researchers in the field
of computer mediated communication (Harasim, 1990; Henri, 1992; Newman et
al., 1995; Gunawardena et al., 1997) and online tutoring or latterly e-
moderation in particular (Mason, 1991; Paulsen, 1992; Berge, 1995; Salmon,
2000; Garrison & Anderson, 2003). The work of these authors suggested that
computer-mediated communication (CMC) may facilitate deep and meaningful
learning and that the online learning experience may be enhanced by effective
online tutoring by a moderator. It appeared that a key word to describe the role
of the online teaching staff in CMC was that of the facilitator.
In CMC literature, the issue of online facilitation appeared from the early ‘90s,
initially as an attempt to describe, as opposed to understand, the role that
educators play online. At that time, Mason (1991) was among the first scholars
who characterised the roles that teachers play online. She distinguished online
tutor’s roles in three major categories. These were the organisational role, the
social role and the intellectual role. Within each of these roles, the tutor
facilitates the learning of the students. Within the organisational role, the duty of
48
an online tutor is to set the agenda for the conference. This involves presenting
the objectives (also referred to as outcomes) of the discussion, the timetable,
the procedural rules and the decision-making norms. Then in the social role, the
tutor is responsible for the creation of a friendly, social environment for learning
by sending welcoming messages at the beginning of the course and encouraging
participation throughout. Providing much feedback on students’ inputs and using
a friendly, personal tone are considered equally important. However, the most
important role of the online tutor, according to Mason (1991), is that of the
educational facilitator. As in any kind of teaching, Mason argues that the
moderator should focus discussions on crucial points, ask questions and probe
responses to encourage students to expand and build on comments.
Berge (1995) added a fourth and transient dimension to the roles of the e-
moderators, namely the ‘technical’ role. The facilitator (or e-moderator),
according to Berge, must make participants comfortable with the system and the
software which the conference is using. The ultimate technical goal for the
moderator is to make the technology transparent. When this is done, Berge
suggests that the learner (and moderator) may then concentrate without
technological constraint on the academic task at hand.
The value of the above initial attempts to describe the roles that tutors play
online has been widely recognised. Many researchers embarked upon the
aforementioned characterisations of online tutoring, which are further elaborated
in various studies as aspects of online tutoring are mapped alongside educational
theories (e.g. socio-constructivism) leading to the proliferation of conceptual
frameworks and models for online tutoring (e.g. Anderson, et al., 2001; Salmon,
2000) as well as a series of guide books aimed to assist tutors with their online
teaching (e.g. Bender, 2003; Collison, et al., 2000; Ko & Rossen, 2004;
MacDonald, 2006; Salmon, 2002). The essence of online facilitation and
moderation in the aforementioned pieces of literature was not so much the
effective use of the technology (although technical moderation is not
underestimated), but rather the ways in which tutors may intervene online with
a purpose. The purpose for online facilitation, nevertheless, may vary,
depending on the particular context in which the online teaching and learning
takes place. The literature has suggested a number of different contexts which
may influence the purpose of the online facilitation. These include fully online
distance and blended learning modules.
So the often asked question that concerns the role of the tutor in either fully
online or blended learning modules is whether traditional tutoring principles can
be adapted to meet the needs for online tutoring. However, there is no
consistency in the published answers. Garrison and Anderson (2003) argued that
‘it makes little sense to replicate or simulate traditional face-to-face approaches
to online learning’ (2). Yet Siemens and Yurkiw (2003) maintained that the ‘skills
49
and knowledge for tutors online are similar to those needed in a classroom
(132). The difference lies, of course, in how these skills are practised online and
if and how ‘teaching’ and ‘facilitating’ online differ. In fact this latter statement
was recently re-affirmed by Salmon (2007:172) who suggested that ‘there is no
evidence so far that there is an easy pathway between instructivist and
constructivist approaches to online moderation’.
THE STUDY
The PhD study reported here (Vlachopoulos, 2008), observed, described and
analysed the distinct interactions between e-moderators and learners in real life
research contexts in two higher education institutions in the UK.
In the first setting, in an English university, one tutor and 17 students from
different countries participated over a period of one academic semester in a
blended Master’s course in ‘Communications, Education and Technology’. This
was delivered using a mixed-mode (or blended) approach of face-to-face
tutorials and sessions in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The students
worked online with their tutor, at times a guest expert and a second tutor, all of
whom adopted the role of “e-moderator”. The students and e-moderators used a
threaded discussion model, wherein all users had the option of responding to
one another directly.
50
Research setting one provided the opportunity to explore three distinct cases of
‘e-moderation’ practice, involving respectively a novice e-moderator, who was
also the tutor of the module; and two e-moderators (invited, guest moderators)
working together on the same task; and to compare the reactions of the same
group of students to the aforementioned e-moderation approaches.
Research setting two gave the opportunity to explore the online moderation of
group discussions by an e-moderator who was also the face-to-face lecturer of
the same students; and hence to relate e-moderation and its impact on
students’ interactions to the achievement of PBL goals.
METHODS
Vlachopoulos (2008) assembled his data from:
His study concentrated from the outset on interactions, responses, reasons for
postings, and influences on student learning and development, where these
could be identified. He analysed the data, using grounded theory procedures
described in Strauss and Glaser (1967), comprising open, theoretical and
selective coding. The process started with an open coding, using NVivo 2. The
data were split into discrete parts using the ‘meaningful unit’ approach (Chi,
1997). During the coding process, theory memos were written to record the
development of concepts and categories. Those memos included information
obtained from the verbal protocols and the interviews, which contained elements
of the e-moderators’ feelings and intentions. The coding process ended when all
segments of the transcript had been allocated a code. Consequently the themes
and theoretical hypothesis only emerged after his analyses of coded interactions
within the discussion boards.
There were two coded schemas developed as part of the analysis process. One
coding schema conceptualised e-moderation practice as either ‘process’ or
51
‘content’ focused for both the e-moderators and the students. The e-moderation
of the process referred to the e-moderator’s interventions in the process of
contributing to the direction of an online discussion, whereas the e-moderation
of the content referred to e-moderator’s interventions in the content of the
discussed topic during the online sessions. The students’ codes ‘process’ referred
here to the different postings which the students made with the help of a
moderator to take forward the online discussion towards the completion of a
suggested task, for example by providing feedback to each other about how to
discuss an issue or instructions on how to make a decision online. In contrast
‘content’ refers to the development and assembly of ideas, topics, questions
which the students discussed. All the categories, which offer a first description of
the e-moderation activity, were then triangulated with data emerged from
another (second) level of coding, which was developed by tracing back what
was reported in the other forms of data, such as the interviews and the recorded
data.
This research found that the moderators in all four case studies declared an
intention to adopt a learner-centred style of e-moderation. All four moderators
mentioned that they would prefer to adopt a facilitator’s role, with the students
52
being in the core of the online discussions. They declared so during their first
interviews.
More specifically, in case study one the moderator wanted her learners to go
about the process of learning autonomously, and to reach conclusions
autonomously (and with little influence from a teaching person). In case study
two, the moderator, who did not in any case have tutorial responsibilities, aimed
to promote thinking and independent learning by making thought-provoking
comments and asking worthwhile questions. In case study three, the moderator
aimed to follow a more directive approach by modelling ways of dealing with the
task given to the students, hoping that in this way the students would develop
the skills to complete the task effectively, and to an acceptable standard. Finally,
in case study four, the moderator claimed to have opted for a Problem-Based
Learning (PBL) approach to promote deeper thinking regarding difficult
engineering issues.
The moderators in this study had emphasised that they would base their e-
moderation interventions on their own teaching philosophies, on their
expectations of the students, as well as on the prescribed roles described in the
activity descriptions for each case study. Further, they all recognised the
importance of training, experience or briefing in helping them prepare for e-
moderation. As such, this sounds like nothing new; but the ways in which these
intentions and plans were actually executed in the online discussions prompts a
searching for a re-consideration of the way in which tutors may adopt an
intended moderator’s role, once they go online.
In practice, the moderators’ intentions in the present studies did not match
either the ideal moderator’s profile which the related literature illustrated and
which, in varying ways, the moderators who were studied had hoped to embody
– or even their declared intentions. None of these moderators succeeded in
effectively engaging the students online, nor in promoting the desired student-
centred learning.
53
All the above advice offered in the literature was affirmed to some extent (and
often in the breach) by the findings in this study. It is worth pointing out that a
substantial part of the literature in e-moderation and online tutoring was written
by persons who have been researching their own innovative educational
practice, reporting and often only describing findings which were not derived
directly from existing naturalistic contexts, and which included no data about the
outcomes of that practice in terms of student learning. There seem to have been
no studies to date which have reported analysis of findings regarding the
learning and development consequent on moderation by tutors working on
credit-bearing modules. Such tutors will have had to accommodate added
pressures to meet the needs of the curriculum and those of their learners. They
are also usually required to adopt multiple roles within their institutions (for
example, the role of the programme leader, the facilitator and the assessor).
With the above in mind, the present findings raise some important issues about
the nature of e-moderators’ interventions and the ways in which tutors adopt
and adapt their roles in ongoing modules in HE. One factor here is the set of
eschewed principles upon which the moderators decided their intended overall e-
moderation approach, coupled with the changes made to that, in practice. The
other is the impact of the observed e-moderation approach on the students’
engagement in the online discussions, and on their consequent learning.
In relation to the first issue, there is some evidence from all four case studies to
suggest that the decisions upon which the moderators each based their
moderation approach were primarily influenced by their understanding (or not)
of the key principles and potential of student autonomy in online learning. The
observed mismatches between the ‘ideal’ and the reality were perhaps the
result of different views on the part of those concerned regarding what form
‘moderation’ should take, and of what an online discussion should entail in terms
of student and tutor effort, interactions and learning outcomes. Similar dilemmas
were also reported in the literature by tutors new to e-moderation (Bennett &
Marsh, 2002; Bennett & Lockyer, 2004). The moderators in the present study
expected that the students should contribute pro-actively to the discussions in
their groups, and put in the necessary effort to deal with both the process and
the content of the tasks. In contrast, the students expected, or at least desired,
that the e-moderators should be active in leading the way. Consequently part of
the tutors’ consequent activity comprised efforts, overt or covert, to rectify this
lack of shared acceptance and understanding of purpose, roles and activity – and
should probably have featured in the preparation for the activity. For the extent
to which the principles of an e-moderation approach is based are made explicit,
and understood, and are agreed beforehand by both moderators and students,
seems certain to influence the way in which the moderation activity will and can
develop.
As far as the issue of the impact of the general nature of the e-moderation on
the students is concerned, it could be said that an important factor which
influenced the range of interactions between the students and the tutor or the
guest moderators in the case studies which were studied was that of online
‘dynamics’.
For the students in the four studies, there were various pre-established power-
relations with the tutor-moderator, the guest-moderator and those students who
54
sometimes adopted a moderator’s role. In all of these dynamic relationships, the
students reacted in different ways. A tutor-moderator was the one who, in the
eyes of the students, would eventually, informally and formally, assess the
content and process of the discussion, and who thus appeared to have the final
say in a judgment of moderated activity. A guest or expert moderator was
perceived and acknowledged for their expertise in the content or the process,
but their views might need to be validated by the tutor-moderator. This was
particularly evident in case studies two and three where, although the two
moderators (as expert and guest moderators respectively) were active in
content interventions, their guidance in the process was only accepted and
followed after the tutor-moderator had intervened to approve their suggestions.
Finally, a student-moderator (or quasi moderator) may be a colleague with no
greater expertise than the other students, but with the willingness to lead or at
least work harder towards the completion of the task. Having a student-
moderator, however, may result in the tricky situation, where everybody else in
the group will count on the student moderator to complete the task for the
group.
It thus became apparent that when deciding the role(s) of the tutor or the
teaching person in online discussions, great care should be taken in the way this
role will be explained, genuinely understood and eventually agreed by the
students. That is because on the one hand many students still lack the skills to
‘resist’ the tutors’ directions; and on the other hand, in the absence of the
tutor’s presence, students may be suspicious of anyone else wishing to fulfil this
role (Anderson, 2006). For example, in this study most of the students did not
critically question or challenge any of the four moderators. Instead students
appeared to be trying to follow their moderator’s instructions in order to
complete the tasks. Similarly, in case studies two and three, the students were
very reluctant to follow the suggestions of the guest moderators, unless these
were supported by the tutor-moderator.
CONCLUSION
This paper summarises some evidence to suggest that there may be important
differences to be aware of with regard to the general nature of the e-moderators’
perceived - and understood and practiced - roles and their consequential impact
on the students’ motivation, level of participation and engagement with the
discussions. The observed nature of the e-moderator’s interventions has
emerged as having a strong influence on how effectively the students engage
with online discussions. The moderator may be committed to a student-centred
approach and to allowing learners to take responsibility over their own learning.
But this self-responsibility is still defined, monitored and even (clearly) judged
by fellow tutors who are in a position to both allow and disallow students the
exercise of such a responsibility.
55
Thus doubt may be cast on the over-generalised concepts of ‘teaching presence’
(Anderson, et al., 2001), and on the definition of ‘e-moderation’ offered by
Salmon (2000). ‘Teaching presence’ asserts that learners and tutors may
establish the teaching, learning and cognitive conditions for the learning
development to occur in a collegial manner. However the findings of this thesis
have shown that the presence of the tutor e-moderator, and their
eschewed principles of teaching had a marked influence on the students’
engagement in the discussions. Furthermore, the definition offered by Salmon
(2000), which suggested that an e-moderator can be ‘anyone’ who presides over
an e-meeting, certainly is not in accord with the evidence of this study. All the
evidence from the students’ interviews and their online postings suggested that
there was a need and usefulness in having a pro-active, reflective moderator
who had the skills to engage the students and to motivate them to participate in
online discussions. And the reflective reviews by the e-moderators of the
experiences certainly reaffirms their conviction that they were attempting to do
more than preside, and felt that their intended role went far beyond presiding.
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57
MEETING STUDENT EXPECTATIONS: ARE THEY ALREADY IN
CONTROL?
ABSTRACT
There has been a considerable amount of interest by many stakeholders in the
ways in which new generations of learners increasingly view technology as
central to everyday life, leading to speculation about what this expectation might
mean for formal education. Such speculation has often been based on anecdotal,
rather than empirical, evidence. To counteract this, recent studies have set out
to investigate more closely learners’ attitudes towards, and use of, technology
for learning. This paper describes one such study, the Learner Experience of e-
Learning (LEX), which aimed to explore how learners in further, higher, and
adult and community learning contexts use technology effectively to support
their learning. The findings indicate that learners are adopting various strategies
to ensure they retain a degree of control and choice over how, why and when
they engage with technology for learning.
INTRODUCTION
Encouraged by government strategy, technological advances and changing
student and employer expectations, universities and colleges now invest
considerable portions of their budgets in implementing technology to support
learning. A significant part of this spend goes towards institutional virtual
learning environments which provide a secure and homogeneous online space
for course information, digital resources, communication and e-assessment
(Browne et al, 2008). Meanwhile, outside the formal learning environment, the
socio-technical landscape is experiencing rapid change and new generations of
students are growing up with technology as a central feature of their everyday
lives (Seely Brown, 2000).
Many commentators have speculated on what this might mean for formal
education, predicting that the learning and teaching environment will need to
change dramatically if it is to address the expectations of these digitally literate
learners (e.g. Prensky, 2001, 2006; Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). Others are less
convinced, pointing to the unnecessary ‘moral panic’ that such conjectures
promote (Bennett et al, 2008). Despite the relatively short history of technology
enhanced learning, speculation on its potentially revolutionary impact is not a
new phenomenon. It was captured effectively by Mayes (1995) who likened it to
the film Groundhog Day in which the main protagonist had to re-live one day in
his life several times over in an unsuccessful attempt to change its outcome.
Mayes asserts that,
58
a huge range of options for students, and as such, can be viewed as major
challenges to institutional control (Anderson, 2007). In order to provide the
optimal learning environment for students, it is vital for both institutions and
teachers to be better informed about learners’ experiences and expectations of
technology for learning.
Recognising this, the UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) began a
new research focus by commissioning a scoping study of the relevant literature
(Sharpe, Benfield, Lessner & De Cicco, 2005). This revealed that the great
majority of technology enhanced learning studies presented a tutor or
institutional perspective, with very few adopting a completely learner-centred
viewpoint. It also highlighted that most of the research had been carried out in
a higher education context, with other post-16 sectors poorly represented.
In acknowledgement of the fact that technology for learning is only one aspect
of usage, the scoping study recommended a holistic approach to researching the
learner experience which would look beyond the confines of individual
programmes of study or specific technologies to encompass the full impact of the
digital age on the lives of post-16 learners. The Learner Experience of e-
Learning (LEX) study was the first to take up the challenge (Creanor et al, 2006,
2008).
This paper will begin by outlining the innovative research methodology which
underpinned the study before going on to provide a flavour of some of the key
themes which emerged from learners’ accounts of their lived experiences.
Finally, it will reflect on how an appreciation of the learner perspective may help
us to move towards a more collaborative approach to the co-creation of
knowledge and educational resources through the effective use of technology.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The four members of the research team brought complementary perspectives to
the study, representing both higher education (Glasgow Caledonian University)
and the further education and adult and community learning sectors (The Open
Learning Partnership, London). Further valuable insight and guidance was
provided by the original scoping study team and the experienced LEX project
consultant. Given the holistic nature of the study and the clear focus on personal
experience, it was agreed that a grounded theoretical approach was required. A
decision was taken to adopt an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA)
methodology which had previously been used in the psychology and health
disciplines (Reid, Flowers & Larkin, 2005). IPA depends on a very open interview
method, and to ensure that learning technology remained central to the
discussion we also implemented a new technique in the form of ‘Interview Plus’ 1
whereby a digital learning artefact such as a blog, discussion board or web
1
The term Interview Plus was first coined by Helen Beetham, consultant to the
JISC e-pedagogy strand
59
resource was introduced towards the end of an interview to re-focus discussion
around the participant’s current learning experience.
Through a robust process of analysis, the extensive data was gradually refined
to a series of high level categories which captured key emerging themes under
the headings of life, formal learning, technology, people, and time. Below these
were a further five sub-categories of control, identity, feelings, relationships and
abilities. Table 1 shows an extract from the conceptual framework which
illustrates the intersections between the categories, each of which is evidenced
by learner quotes.
The remainder of the paper will focus on a just a few of these key themes with a
particular focus on issues relating to learner control and choice. A more
extensive description and critique of the methodology can be found in the LEX
Methodology Report (Mayes, 2006).
60
LEARNERS’ VIEWS
Generations
Our sample reflected the fact that the student population is not as homogeneous
as some commentators might lead us to believe. Yet despite the diversity in
educational contexts and demographic profiles, the data analysis revealed
several commonly recurring themes. Unsurprisingly perhaps, generational
differences were expressed in a way which indicated that the participants were
highly aware of their contrasting attitudes towards, and experiences of,
technology.
“…. you take it for granted because our generation has grown up with it …
it’s always been there and we’ll just use it.” Lynsey, young undergraduate
student
The variation in levels of familiarity appeared less marked in the formal learning
context however and did not appear to be viewed as a major barrier. Indeed
several learners reported that, while they may have lacked confidence with
technology at the start of their course, they believed they were now using it as
effectively as their peers.
“I'm beginning to rely less and less on other people showing me what to
do. Instead of being afraid of technology on the computer, I'm beginning
to learn, well it’s not as bad as it seems, take your time, if you make a
mistake it doesn't matter, just do it again.” Michele, mature trade union
online learner
Ownership Issues
The use of personal mobile devices, particularly phones and laptops, was
widespread amongst participants, with 86% describing themselves as frequent
mobile phone users. This in itself was not unexpected, however what was
striking was the depth of attachment and ownership expressed by the learners.
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Nevertheless, beyond contacting fellow learners to arrange meetings or to seek
some course-related information, there was little evidence that participants were
using their mobile phones, PDAs or iPods to support learning. Indeed very
mixed views were expressed at the idea of downloading learning-related
podcasts or receiving text messages from tutors, with several suggesting that
they would see this as an infringement of their personal devices which they had
carefully customised to suit their own needs. Others recognised the potential
benefits and welcomed the opportunity to access learning resources more
flexibly. Where participants did choose to take advantage of their personal
devices to support learning, they often did so in unexpected ways, which, from a
lecturer’s perspective, could even be viewed as subversive.
“We’ve made a promise that if one of us isn’t there, we’ll record the
lecture for them and send them it later.” (Lynsey, first year
undergraduate)
“You never know if the knowledge is actually good or not, so I'm always
worried that I'm handing something in which is completely just one guy’s
opinion, but it looks really professional, but maybe he's a complete
liar....”
Laura, young first year undergraduate
Participants recognised that they needed support from their tutors to make such
judgements. There was also a perception that although younger learners might
be more adept at using online resources, the mature learners adopted a more
balanced approach and were prepared to use a wider range of resources.
It was evident that for many of the participants, creating and sharing resources
with peers, friends and family was also commonplace.
“I would take thirty, forty photos in one evening and before I even go to
bed that night I upload them onto my Messenger page and everyone I
know, all my friends, at night, they just go straight onto my Messenger
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page and all my photos are online then.” Emma, young undergraduate
student
There was little supporting evidence to suggest that this type of activity was
being transferred to the formal learning context. What was reported however
was a strong sense of commitment to sharing information with fellow learners
within the framework of collaborative learning activities.
“On the discussion board … it's sharing information with others. As the
data builds up on it each year the students come along and they can …
share that same bank of information.” Undergraduate focus group
member
The creation of multimedia materials such as video and audio files was less
widespread among participants but when it was reported, it was often with the
specific purpose of sharing with friends and family. This type of activity
generally took place outside their institutional learning environments and was
not acknowledged or recognised by tutors, suggesting that there may be scope
for building on such skills by promoting more effectively the co-creation of
shared resources for learning.
Learner choices
Where learners were less convinced of either the value of online activities or the
technology used, they often chose to opt out.
“You can also if you want, have a discussion over [the VLE] but I tend not
to use it because, well, the teachers take a while to get back and it's not
very personal ‘cos everyone can read what you write.” Alan, third year
undergraduate
Neither was this solely the preserve of younger learners. Mature learners also
expressed strong views about their engagement with learning activities and were
prepared to undermine their tutor’s expectations by making personal choices
about how much or how little they would contribute.
“You can choose I find, you can interact as much as you like or you can
do the minimum, particularly if its activity based, so if you've got to prove
that you've been in the discussion forums you just keep that to a
minimum to prove you've done it.” Rebecca, mature ACL learner
There was strong evidence that where learning was deliberately designed to
encourage autonomy, learners reported that their engagement was more intense
and that their learning was significantly enhanced. The learning log or e-portfolio
approach provided one such example.
“[The learning log] is probably the most enjoyable bit I’ve done. It’s your
own learning, it’s all what you write which is … more interesting to you.
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You can relate it to your own experiences and … you’ve got a free role,
you can write whatever you want … there’s no wrong answer ‘cos it’s how
you interpret it.” Nick, undergraduate student
There was also evidence that this sense of engagement and ownership had a
wider, positive, influence on learners’ self-directed learning strategies.
“the learning [log] obviously was for one course but I found myself
applying it to all my other disciplines and courses and bringing everything
together into it.” Undergraduate focus group member
“... it just depends on how the course provider lays out the course and
how they allow you to access the course because of course they still
control how you learn and at what pace you learn, even though access
tends to be controlled by me. Obviously, they don't dictate you must be
there every Tuesday between 9 and 11 for instance. That's the part that
you can control, the rest of it is up to the course provider.” Rebecca,
mature trade union learner
The impact of effective course design in affording student control and developing
learner autonomy is a central issue for both learners and tutors. Achieving the
right balance is challenging, but participants were unambiguous in their view
that face-to-face and technology-enhanced learning activities should go “hand-
in-hand” and that the tutor remained central to their e-learning experience.
“This kind of technology is only as good as the tutor that's behind it.”
Kirsten, postgraduate student
CONCLUSION
As a limited one year study LEX cannot claim to speak for all learners, but by
taking a deep approach to researching individual experiences it has achieved its
aim of providing a platform for learners to describe their feelings, attitudes and
approaches towards technology for learning. It has provided valuable evidence
to inform our growing understanding of how a wide range of post-16 learners
are exploiting both institutional and personal technologies in support of learning
and established that the effective use of technology is not solely the preserve of
younger generation. Given the disproportionate increase in mature learners in
higher education (Mayes, 2007) this is an important issue. The LEX Final Report
also underlines the significance of control and choice in the learner experience,
stating that,
64
evidence of the impact on motivation which such a strong sense of
ownership provides.” (Creanor et al, 2006: 27)
• they are highly motivated and are prepared to make significant efforts to
overcome technical barriers
• they are prepared to make their own decisions about which technologies
to use, and how and when to use them
Increasing evidence points to the fact that empowering learners can enhance
learning through deepening engagement and encouraging self-directed learning
(Rust et al, 2003; Nicol, 2006). By acknowledging learner use of personal
technologies, involving learners more in the design of learning activities &
assessments, and integrating learner-created resources, we can build on and
learn from the wide-ranging technological skills and strategies which learners
increasingly display. This, of course, presupposes a high degree of trust and
mutual understanding among learners, tutors and peers.
“For me, I would just expect people who'd committed to the course to do
the course, and to speak up if they've got problems. It’s just the basics of
life: be nice to one another, don't condemn anyone because they did
something differently or they asked a dumb question. I wouldn't expect
[the tutor] to have to monitor the forum, I would expect it almost to be
self-monitoring …” (Jenny, ACL learner)
Evidence from LEX suggests that our learners may be prepared, but it seems
that we have some way to go before we are in a position to fully meet their
evolving expectations.
References
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education, JISC Technology and Standards Watch Report, available online at
http://www.jisc.org.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701b.pdf
Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008), The ‘digital natives’ debate: a critical
review of the evidence, in British Journal of Educational Technology, 39, 5,
775-786.
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Browne, T., Hewitt, R., Jenkins, M. and Walker, R. (2008) Technology Enhanced
Learning Survey, UCISA, available online at
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Creanor, L., Trinder, K., Gowan, D., Howells, C. (2006) L E X: The Learner
Experience of e-Learning Final Project Report, available online at
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Creanor, L., Trinder, K., Gowan, D., Howells, C. (2008) Life, Learning and
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Mayes, J.T. (1995) Learning Technology and Groundhog Day In W. Strang, V.B.
Simpson & J. Slater (Eds.) Hypermedia at Work: Practice and Theory in
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Mayes, J. T. (2007) The TESEP context in HE, available online at
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Nicol, D. (2006) Increasing success in first year courses: assessment re-design,
self-regulation and learning technologies, in Markauskate, M.. Goodyear, P.,
Reiman, P. (Eds), Who's Learning? Whose Technology? Proceedings of
ASCILITE, p589-598, 3-6 December, University of Sydney, Australia.
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understanding the net generation, in Oblinger D. and Oblinger J. (eds),
Educating the Net Generation, Educause. Available online at
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Prensky, M. (2001), Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, On the Horizon, 9, 5,
NCB University Press. Available online at
http://www.twitchspeed.com/site/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,
%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.htm
Prensky M. (2006), Listen to the Natives, Educational Leadership, 63,4, 8-13
Reid, K. Flowers, P. & Larkin, M. (2005), Exploring Lived Experience, The
Psychologist, 18, 1, 20-23
Rust, C., Price, M. and O’Donovan, B. (2003) Improving students’ learning by
developing their understanding of assessment criteria and processes,
Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28(2), 147-164.
Winne, P. (2005). A perspective on state-of-the-art research on self-regulated
learning. Instructional Science, 33, 559-565.
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J.A.Smith (Ed.) Qualitative Psychology, London: Sage.
66
STUDENT GENERATED PODCASTS: LEARNING TO CASCADE RATHER THAN
CREATE
ABSTRACT
There is currently an explosion of exploratory uses of podcasts in education, but
only a few where the students, rather than the staff, produce the podcasts.
Where it has been done, it has mainly been for students where the technology
itself was also relevant to their studies (e.g. computing science or media studies
courses). Here however we report on one of these on a course for ‘non-
technical’ students from the faculty of Arts. These students were required to
produce a single video podcast for their third-year philosophy course. The
requirements to present something useful to fellow students and to master a
new and fashionable technology are well designed to augment self-confidence
and self-efficacy, to engage students, to equip them with a skill that may
enhance their employability, and to foster deeper learning. However a basic
reason for student generated content of this kind is that authoring for other
students (rather than for marking by a staff member) should give impetus to
deeper thought about the content. This would not only cement existing
knowledge but also supplement it with new perspectives and considerations.
Sceptics might argue differently, claiming it to be a gimmick to boost course
numbers. However, crafting a report, essay or regurgitating facts on exam day
involve different learning experiences and skills to that of giving a persuasive
presentation to a large audience.
INTRODUCTION
Podcasts, as a free audio or video delivered directly to an iPod needing no more
than one-click to activate, have attracted a large and very wide-ranging
audience. Naturally, many individuals and organisations now want to make use
of this powerful platform and their desire has driven costs down while
simultaneously enhancing usability.
The initial barriers to recording, editing and distribution have been broken, and
the most popular iPod can now record audio straight out-of-the-box without the
need for any additional accessories or software. When the iPod is next
synchronised the recording will be automatically transferred to the system where
it can be edited in seconds – adding copyright-free jingles and / or sound
effects, if so desired. From there, distribution is just one more click away.
21
Assistant Professor at Duke University, Daniel H. Foster used podcasts as part
of an exercise in his ‘Radio and Theatre of Mind’ course.
67
However, there has been little attention paid to those who are still learning,
those future experts, who are disconnected from the world of science and
technology. The average Arts student studying divinity, history, literature or
philosophy is likely to spend more time poring over ancient texts and penning
discursive essays than, say, creating a video podcast.
This is a new medium for powerful and international public speaking, and public
speaking is, in its turn, a transferable skill, that many students, not simply Arts
students, no longer practise. This could be easily remedied using podcasts.
There is no reason why a collection of “digital natives” (Prensky, 2001), such as
Arts students, could not construct a small video presentation on a topic of
interest to a large diverse audience. Thinking about the content itself, their
potential audience, whether publicly available or privately presented to their
peers in class, and how it will be presented should all serve to refine a student’s
critical thinking and presentation skills. In this paper we report an innovative
educational case with exactly these features: student-generated podcasts, video
rather than audio-only, by philosophy students with no subject-related
fascination with or training in modern technology, yet who are presumed to be
“digital natives”.
We will start by examining the course objectives and how to address them in a
suitable assessed exercise. We then consider three potential assessed exercises
and their respective outcomes before settling on one for use as a group
assignment. The abilities required to successfully complete the exercise are
determined alongside the strategies necessary for equipping students with these
abilities. Performance on the exercise will be determined through an objective
marking scheme that we have designed which not only provides flexibility for the
marker but clear criteria for the student. The exercise is then trialled as part of
the assessment of a third-year non-technical philosophy course and the
feedback produced by the students which is largely favourable. We discuss the
potential to repurpose products of the exercise as new learning and recruitment
materials, and discuss what might be changed to improve the experience and
learning opportunities for this particular class.
EDUCATIONAL RATIONALE
This particular learning activity needs to address several issues that are
expressed in the course objectives.
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Downing Street Podcast - http://www.number10.gov.uk/podcast - 30/10/08
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additional aim of deepening understanding rather than covering more
topics.
2. Creating material for fellow students is a natural way to frame this. As
has long been understood by, for example, Piaget, you expect your
teacher to understand what you mean and compress expression in order
not to bore her, while peers naturally require fuller and more careful
explanation. This is learning by teaching, as in the surgeons’ slogan for
continuing professional development: “See one, do one, teach one”. The
traditional university activity for this is the seminar where students in turn
present a topic, but the drawback of this method is that it often
degenerates with students paying little attention to each other’s
contributions, and it usually doesn’t leave a record that can be re-used by
students when it comes to essay preparation or revision. More recent
incarnations of this particular genre are Collis & Moonen’s student
generated content approach [See, for example, Collis & Moonen, 2005
and Spires & Morris, 2008], and “computer supported cooperative lecture
notes” in which student teams contribute sections to a class-wide
collection of notes on web pages. The latter had been used in earlier
courses in this institution.
3. This is also natural to do by means of group work, where each group,
rather than each individual, produces a presentation. The discussion
within the group is a more immediate peer process with the same virtues
for deepening personal understanding. It is also independently
worthwhile as a skill valued by many employers.
4. A second major employability skill is communication; and particularly,
being able to communicate in multiple formats, not merely by essay-
writing or speaking up in seminars and tutorials. Podcasting is a novel
medium that, in itself, might be a worthwhile skill under this heading.
However, a more general issue, which this exercise was intended to
develop, is the consideration of how the medium (the format) can be best
used to communicate with the intended audience and the course-specific
content.
ASSESSED EXERCISE
The assessed exercise has to encompass the four key elements outlined in the
previous section: rehearsal of course content, creating material for fellow
students, group work, and communication. It needs a simple and elegant
distribution platform that is easy to grasp within the limited time available and
with the, possibly, limited technical knowledge possessed by the student.
Distribution platforms such as cassette or versatile discs are too expensive and
complicated for students to grasp in a small amount of time. A cheap and
simplistic alternative is a distribution platform which utilises the power of the
Internet, for example, YouTube or podcasts. Although YouTube is a popular
platform the quality is low, especially text and graphics, and requires a
dedicated and fast data-connection. This is not true of podcasts: not only can
the audience download content to their device in advance but that content can
be of a far superior quality. We therefore chose podcasts as our distribution
platform.
The outcome, the video-podcast, is a product for the distribution platform and
should be no more than ten minutes long. Although students have only six
weeks to complete the exercise, the length of presentation is to force them in to
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presenting ideas clearly and concisely. In developing the assessed exercise we
considered three possible courses of action:
Initially, the first outcome seemed like the best option because it didn’t require
any significant knowledge or technology to produce and would be useful for
future students. Unfortunately, it would only require surface knowledge of most
course topics and might present too thin a notion of course content. The second
option attempted to address this problem by asking students to focus on a
particular aspect of the course and to use appropriate images to emphasise
points. This enhanced audio approach would see students synchronise audio with
images and offer DVD-style chapters for sub-topics. This would not only result in
a product useful to current students but also strengthen existing knowledge in
the student producing it. However, there are two foreseeable problems with this
approach: (a) specialist knowledge of software, and (b) lack of reflection on the
other elements of presentation like, body posture, facial movements, and
physical location. We want students to think about the language they use,
including their body language, and what they want the viewer / listener to
understand at the end of their presentation. This would all be most easily
available in the third course of action: video presentation on a course-specific
topic of the student’s choice.
Option three is slightly harder to achieve than audio but easier than enhanced
audio. It is likely that most students will not have the specialist knowledge or
software required to produce enhanced audio podcasts but will already know
how to produce videos using their mobile phone or webcam and, in many cases,
how to edit them using appropriate software. Option three is also the most
suitable for mirroring the course objectives and promotes an awareness of
audience and importance of appearance.
ABILITIES
The assessed exercise can be subdivided into three activities: preparation,
production, and distribution. Each activity requires its own unique set of abilities
with which each student must be equipped – during teaching hours, i.e.
seminars and workshops – if they are to do well.
Preparation
Unsurprisingly preparation, in terms of both time and energy, is the most
expensive activity within the whole exercise, and it is explained to the students
that, if they are to communicate successfully with their audience, they must
prepare their chosen topic thoroughly. This should not be too much of a
problem; they will have had lectures and seminars on all the major themes, and
70
they will have been directed towards course- and subject-specific reading and
research papers. Furthermore, the notes they will have taken in seminar
discussions should provide the perfect foundation for some interesting and
energetic discussion and the presentation of alternative points of view. They will
also know that, contra Aristotle’s belief that the true is always more appealing
than the false, these arguments must not only be sound but also stimulate the
audience. The aim is to make their presentations persuasive without feeling like
a lecture, which is quite a difficult thing to achieve in any medium.
Group work presents may challenges, not least of which is each member finding
his or her own rôle in relation to a dynamic set of relationships. This is
something that cannot be taught in this, or possibly any other, class; but what
the course coordinator can do in this class is impress upon the students that
their group is unlikely to strike the perfect balance in its first meeting and,
similarly, they must adopt an iterative approach to planning and writing the
script for their presentation, starting with a basic outline for their video and
fleshing it out over many attempts. They need also to run through their
presentation more than once, perhaps even having several dry runs to
determine the best format for their final recording.
Production
Producing a short ten-minute video presentation with the latest hardware and
software will require few new technical abilities. The groups were advised to
achieve as much as they wanted with the hardware (for example the
camcorder), and avoid the software (the editing suite) as much as possible. The
simple reason for this is that editing film is an expensive and complex stage in
production, and in this case it would really only mask the project’s objective.
Avoiding editing, with the exception of, perhaps, stitching together small
segments, is entirely possible with thorough planning. The groups attended a
one-hour workshop on how to use university equipment, but they were also
advised that they could record and edit their video using their own hardware and
software, for example, a mobile phone and iMovie. In addition to these
workshops each group had open contact to the course convenor to discuss
content, and access to one-to-one technical support for up to six hours, during
the production stage of their video.
Distribution
The distribution platform is podcasts. In order to utilise this platform a simple
text file, an RSS feed, is required. The feed contains information about the video
such as its title, synopsis and length. The structure of the feed is similar to that
of a webpage and requires knowledge of extensible mark-up language or XML
and how to use it. A briefing on the basics of this language was outlined at a
one-hour workshop. After the initial briefing students were asked to organise
themselves into their groups and to write the RSS feed for their video
presentation. They were asked to do this using pen and paper while some
example RSS feeds where shown on an overhead. The group’s efforts were
checked, corrected if necessary, and confirmed before the end of the session.
This meant students could type their RSS feed with the confidence that it was
correct.
MARKING SCHEME
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The assessment would ultimately be awarded a passing grade of A – D or a
failing grade, E – N. The grades are mapped to a 22-point scale outlined by the
University. The lowest passing score is nine (D3) progressing upwards to a
maximum of 22 (A1). The assessment itself represents 25% of the final course
award.
The final marking scheme was created specifically for the assessment, consisting
of five elements: RSS feed, video file, time-spent, content and log report.
The first four components are dependent upon each other, which is to say that,
failing to complete one results in failure in all.
Three of the components have a binary score, zero or one, they are: RSS feed,
video and log report. These components are not actually scored but their
satisfactory completion is recorded. If a student submits an invalid RSS feed,
poorly recorded video, or incomplete log report they will still be awarded one
point. However, this is not true if any of these components are corrupted,
damaged or clearly neglected. A simple example would be a student spending a
reasonable amount of time crafting a beautiful video and log report and
submitting both without an RSS feed. The student in this case has submitted a
video, not a video podcast. They would score zero for the first component,
resulting in 0 x 1 x 3 x 7 = 0, that is, a zero and fail overall. Thus, a student
must submit an RSS feed and video. The technical wizardry or competence
displayed in either component does not matter, since a student will only be
recorded as submitted or not submitted. Students showing forethought will not
waste time with visual effects and podcast tricks but focus on the content.
The two remaining components, time-spent and content, are scored in the range
zero to three and zero to seven respectively. These components are the most
important, and a high score in both will result in a very high score overall.
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time-spent by considering all elements of information within the log report, the
storyboard and the scripts.
THE STUDY
A group assignment was set on a third year philosophy course, with 24 students
in groups of two or three, to produce a video podcast on a course-specific topic
of their choice. The assignment was worth 25% of a student’s final course
award. The students had six weeks to complete the assignment and were
required to attend all seminars and two one-hour workshops, to equip
themselves with the necessary skills to complete the exercise. Groups were
advised they had six hours of one-to-one technical support from a trained
member of staff and had access to state-of-the-art podcast production
equipment but were also informed they could use their own equipment. Access
to equipment was tightly regulated, with no group allowed access after six hours
of use. This was a further attempt to emphasise the importance of planning and
content over presentation, but also to maintain a level of consistency in the
assistance afforded each group. The groups were required to submit all their
scripts and storyboards along with a typed RSS feed, their video in MP4 format
and log reports, one for each member of the group. The log report contained
several questions, some personal, some feedback, and some aimed at extracting
any technical or group difficulties during the exercise. The log report also asked
students, if they so wished, to produce a score for their fellow group members
along with a justification for that score.
FEEDBACK
Students on the course were initially rather hesitant, as is natural, about
embarking on a task for which they had little previous experience. We had
assumed that, with the prevalence of mobile phones, video-podcasts and
YouTube that they would have been more familiar with video technologies, but in
fact they were not. On reflection, we should not have expected anything else
because the students in this course had, and continue to have, the same attitude
to the creation of web pages, something they also do in a course which runs
prior to this one. In the first five years of their undertaking this sort of project
their attitudes have changed very little, nearly every student reports
experiencing a steep learning curve but also a strong sense of achievement
when their group’s web-pages are made available to the class and they can learn
from one another for essay-planning, revision, and examination preparation.
73
We assumed that the video-podcast exercise would be more appealing to
students because it would tap into, an assumed penchant, for video-recording
and editing. The course coordinator had similar feelings, as can be seen from the
quote below.
However, actual academic performance and student feedback ran counter to our
assumptions. Although the students’ performance was no better or worse than in
previous years, products of the assessed exercise rarely embodied the
enthusiasm and creativity we had expected and hoped for. Instead groups
stayed largely on familiar ground producing, what amounted to video recordings
of the individuals collectively reciting essays. This is not to say that there were
not moments of inspiration but they were fairly few and quite far between.
The highest scoring group had sat down together and worked everything
through to the last detail. They then booked some time in the studio, recorded it
all in one go, did some editing, added some backing music, and had the project
completed ahead of time. The project had a clear connection to one of the
central themes in the course – identity and moral responsibility in cyberspace –
and the content was well argued and concise. At the other end of the scale, the
group who got the lowest score admitted to not having spoken together about
the project before they went to make their recording. Their topic
– representation and misrepresentation in space and cyberspace – was vague,
they made some drawings (which bore little relation to the project), then
scanned the drawings, added them to Keynote and made their video-podcast
using slides rather than their own planned action. The course is very rich and
stimulating, but this group had thought about the project so little that their
recording ran for less than seven minutes and a considerable portion of that was
their credits.
It could simply be that our own enthusiasm carried us along and our
expectations were set too high, but it is clear that, although our students are no
different from any others in their high use of mobile phones for communication,
they are not “digital natives”. However, we are not entirely forlorn. Table 1
reveals some interesting points extracted from log-reports. Three things of
particular note stand out: (a) all students own a dedicated mobile phone and
music player, (b) the majority perform poorly at basic digital tasks such as
accessing a wireless access point, and (c) the majority of students enjoyed the
exercise.
Question Yes No
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Do you own an iPod? 10 4*
REPURPOSING
The videos produced by the groups can be repurposed and used as revision
material for students, preparatory material for future students or marketing
material for potential students.
Revision
There should be little to no effort required in repurposing videos as revision aids.
The videos produced by groups should really reflect a revision process by the
students themselves. The salient sections of interest and key concepts should be
easily extractable and concise. The short ten-minute videos represent the
perfect start and end to a study session, and a student could easily refresh a
topic of study by watching the video while commuting to the University Library,
and before they enter the Library they know the key topics, concepts and
relevant papers. They gather their resources, spend some hours reading and can
then compare their thoughts and notes to those presented on the video. If they
have missed anything or have had an original thought – they can tackle it at the
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next study session. Idealistic maybe, but for such a powerful learning resource
to be the by-product of an assessed exercise is really quite wonderful.
Marketing
Video is a strong marketing resource, far more accessible than a well-written
essay. Prospective employers, students, their parents and an increasingly large
international audience can see at a glance the quality of learning and teaching at
the university, not only through the content of the video but the approaches
used as well.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion we should consider the question of whether or not it was a mistake
to introduce a significant exercise that was for the students a novel task in both
its format and the tools required, and in its nature as a learning activity, with
students producing content for a different audience, not just for a teacher to
mark. The marks show that many of the student groups focussed on either
mastering the technology or on producing intellectually worthwhile content, but
not both. However, the higher scoring groups did manage to address both and
this might have been because they, other groups had done the comparable
webpage exercise in a previous course – one of these students even reported
that they had “really enjoyed this course especially the opportunity to create a
web-page and a podcast which is invaluable knowledge I can take into any job
I may have in the future.” This suggests that students need practice at this
learning activity, just as with most others, but that they improve rapidly with
practice: unique, unrepeated types of assessment lead to generally poor results.
Given the employability-related learning aims of exercising communication skills
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and especially in multiple formats, then introducing more such exercises rather
than dropping them would seem to be the way forward.
Bibliography
Collis, B. & Moonen, J. (2005). ‘An on-going journey: Technology as a learning
workbench’. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. Available
http://www.BettyCollisJefMoonen.nl
Draper, S.W. & Maguire, J. (2007) ‘Exploring podcasting as part of campus-
based teaching’. Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning in Higher Education v2, no.1 pp.42-63.
Frydenberg, M. (2006) ‘Principles and Pedagogy: The Two P’s of Podcasting in
the Information Technology Classroom’. The Proceedings of ISECON 2006.
v23, (Dallas): §3354. ISSN: 1542-7382.
Lee, M.J.W., McLoughlin, C. & Chan, A. (2008) ‘Talk the talk: Learner-generated
podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation’. British Journal of Educational
Technology v39, no.3 pp.501-521.
Prensky, M. (2001) ‘Digital natives, digital immigrants’. On the Horizon v9, no.5
pp1-6.
Spires, H. & Morris, G. (2008). ‘New Media Literacies, Student Generated
Content, and the YouTube Aesthetic’. In Proceedings of World Conference on
Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008, pp.
4409-4418. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Wojtas, O. (2006) ‘Kant get no satisfaction, try iTunes new No 1’. Times Higher
Education Supplement. 15th December 2006. Front Page.
77
ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE STAFF COLLABORATION
TO FOSTER INDEPENDENT LEARNING
ABSTRACT
This paper outlines how the project ‘Transforming and Enhancing the Student
Experience through Pedagogy’, used a social constructivist pedagogical approach
to support active learning and information literacy development within a module
in engineering design management, with the intention of improving both student
experience and assessment performance. The result was greater engagement
with the body of knowledge, increased peer collaboration, and appropriate
deployment of technology to facilitate the learning, teaching and assessment in
the context of on-campus delivery, supported by discipline-based information
literacy input from a librarian. In taking forward the lessons learnt the authors
present the current work on more systematic development of scholarship skills
across programmes of study by The Society of College, National and University
Libraries (SCONUL) and Glasgow Caledonian and Napier Universities, and argue
that collaboration among academic and professional services staff is essential to
the success of such ventures in transforming the student experience.
INTRODUCTION
Napier University was the lead institution on a higher/further education (FE/HE)
collaborative project entitled ‘Transforming and Enhancing the Student
Experience through Pedagogy’ (TESEP), which started in 2005 and finished in
July 2007. It was one of six E-learning and Transformational Change projects
supported by £6m from the Scottish Funding Council, the overall aim of the
programme being to support effective and significant change in technology-
supported learning, teaching and assessment practice within institutions and
across the FE and HE sectors, partly to ease the transition between two. A
community of practice approach was taken with each practitioner participating in
a sub-project within their own institution and contributing to the shared
knowledge of the group throughout the project’s operational phase. Work done
across the whole project was collated at the end into the TESEP Transform
website (Napier University, 2007a) to serve as both a showcase and a resource,
and the intention was to use the experience gained and resources developed to
continue with the transformation work beyond the project’s official end date.
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THE TESEP PROJECT
Vision and aims
Several issues pointed towards the necessity of examining how pedagogically-
driven technology-supported learning could be used to transform educational
practice at institutional level including political developments such as the
widening access agenda, and practical issues such as the need for greater
flexibility of delivery. Students’ familiarity with technology and the desire to use
it to help them access leaning in a manner appropriate and attractive to them,
the need to update the technical skills of staff and the absolute requirement to
apply technology in an educationally sound manner, gave the impetus for
experimenting with a range of tools and methods for learning, teaching and
assessment and its support. TESEP did not promote a techno-centric approach
but rather one where technology was recognised as an enabler.
A central tenet of TESEP was that learning should be designed to give control to
the learners themselves, hence the project’s strapline, ‘Learners in Control’.
While the amount of control appropriate for each stage of study may vary, it is
certainly the case that such learner control is necessary for truly active learning
to take place and, consequently, if this is to happen learners must be adequately
prepared and confident to accept the associated responsibility.
Pedagogical foundations
TESEP advocated a social constructivist pedagogical approach, i.e. one where
the human activity of constructing knowledge and meaning from one’s
experiences is conducted within a social context and comprises such activities as
collaborative research, and peer tutoring and assessment. Technology added
another dimension to this in that it enabled some of the necessary research,
communication and collaboration, and the project aimed to utilise innovative
tools and techniques, tailored for the specific requirements of the particular
student group. Although it was not a requirement that the redesign was
constructed as problem based learning, there were overlaps with this approach
and some institutional projects did adopt it.
Organisational structure
The project was run by a professional project manager supported by a project
management team comprising senior staff from each participating institution and
led by a project director. In addition a project team of institutional e-pedagogy
experts, an external consultant, an evaluator and an accessibility advisor
supported a community of twenty practitioners drawn from a variety of discipline
areas. Regular workshops, individual assistance, reflective blogs and an
electronic community forum provided the mechanisms for project coordination,
support and sharing of knowledge. All practitioners had access to case study
outlines, models, learning designs and reflective diary material from their TESEP
colleagues which assisted in transferring across lessons learnt in one project to
another.
79
performance, quality management and use of computer based tools for design
process support, all leading to the development of best practice exemplars for
good design management. The module is part of the BSc (Honours) in Product
Design Engineering which is accredited by the Institution of Engineering
Designers (IED) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). As
TESEP started there were approximately sixty-five students across all years of
the programme and seventeen taking this year three module. There were four
contact hours per week which were used as a flexible mix of lectures, tutorials
and seminars, supported by paper-based materials that were used in the form of
a study guide. Students made formally assessed presentations on selected
topics related to design management and also submitted an individual design
management exemplar for their final summative assessment. While the module
concept had been commended by its external examiner and its operation was
not problematic, it was recognised that the students’ use of learning resources
could be improved as their engagement had been variable and there had been
little technology use within the module. The TESEP project, therefore, provided
an ideal opportunity to enhance what was already a valuable module, by making
the student experience more enjoyable, by promoting greater student
engagement and peer collaboration, and using appropriate technologies to
support this in the context of on-campus delivery. There was also the
opportunity to address the relatively common problem of lack of engagement
with management topics by engineers who perceive that they are not as relevant
as their technical subjects.
Approach
The redesign was done alongside the broader training and staff development
activity of the TESEP project community, initial implementation on the module
was carried out in semester two of session 2006/07, and the tools and
techniques were also applied as appropriate to other semester one modules of
that session. The changes in delivery were designed to encourage more student
activity outside class, some of which was centred around tutor supplied
materials, and to put greater emphasis on students adding to this through their
own individual and group research. The technology focus initially was on using
video to help with the assessed presentations, and use of library databases for
researching presentations, though more extensive use of technology was
planned for subsequent sessions, including WebCT Vista discussion boards and
wikis. Blogs and audio technology were also investigated and implemented on
other engineering modules, with the aim of using such technology to support
both student and staff tasks; for example, voice recognition software was used
to improve the quality of assessment feedback for students.
The intended outcomes for the redesign of the Case Studies module were:
80
• More effective staff teamwork, using skills of academics, educational
development experts, and library staff to optimise the learning and
teaching experience
The TESEP model did not focus on content creation, which is where much
resource is often directed in e-learning development, but on the design of
learning activities and promotion of active student engagement in a variety of
tasks, including finding and analysing content, discussion and peer collaboration.
Explicit development of information literacy skills was designed into the learning
framework, which was not simply generic, but focused around the specific
discipline and assessment tasks. Thus a progressive development of learner
independence was facilitated over the period of the module delivery with the
academic and a librarian guiding the students through structured activities,
providing the expert knowledge to make the exploration fruitful.
‘100% said they liked the idea of using technology to help with teaching
and learning and 94% reported it worked well and helped them to learn.
70% indicated that they would like to use additional technologies to those
used to date, e.g. podcasting, although some had difficultly using the tools
already provided due to lack of time or knowledge. Around 24% were
happy with the level of technology usage, either because they felt that was
adequate, or because it was more than that used in other modules.
Students recognised the benefits of technology, particularly immediacy,
ability to work any place any time, having a repository of information and
being able to potentially obtain information in different formats, and 65%
believed that technology supported an interactive approach to learning.
88% also reported that they learnt more from working in a group to
prepare presentations and on courseworks, as opposed to just participating
in lectures and tutorials, citing benefits including: increased confidence,
being able to learn from each other, developing abilities with research,
more in depth learning, and being forced to work at a consistent pace
throughout the module’ (Benzies, 2006).
Actual Results
The video feedback certainly did seem to improve performance on the
presentation element of the assessment and anecdotal evidence indicated that
this student group was also able to transfer the good presentation performance
across to other module work.
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However, there were still gaps in scholarly skills as evidenced by assessment
performance in the individual written work and this was somewhat disappointing.
This could have be tackled by reinforcing the preparation for research activity
and investing effort in writing skills development, though it is believed that the
TESEP project experience shows that such deficiencies cannot be turned round
within a single module and that a more comprehensive approach to building
scholarly skills is needed, requiring input from Year 1 and across the
programme, to progressively build learner competence.
Within the current university context the direct responsibility for the provision of
information literacy skills rests with the five full-time subject specialist librarians,
known as Information Services Advisors (ISAs), who are assigned to one or
more Schools. Approach and level of engagement with academic colleagues
varies between the disciplines, and an individual academic’s own view on the
value of information literacy skills development and its particular place in their
module determines if and when such skills are emphasised in the learning,
teaching and assessment activity. All this can lead to imbalance and gaps in the
curriculum, especially in cross-discipline programmes. Other related work with
academic staff has revealed the need for professional development for that
group in the area of information skills, though this problem is largely
unacknowledged and therefore hidden. Previous individual arrangements
between library and academic staff are now complemented by more targeted
staff education including showcase events at lunchtimes or internal staff
conferences and sessions within the Academic Development professional
development programme. This is considered important in ensuring that
professional services and academic staff share a common understanding of
information literacy development and resources so all may efficiently work
towards embedding scholarly skills within the curriculum, thus giving students
the tools to engage with active and independent learning.
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The TESEP project work revealed the extent of the gap in information literacy
skills among these year three students and, as they were believed to be typical
of the general student population at Napier, confirmed the need to effectively
prepare students for the challenges of independent learning in a more
systematic manner. The particular source of the difficultly in researching for
their learning and assessment tasks was that these students had received no
formal information literacy training since having a short lecture as an induction
input from library staff in first year and, without the TESEP project intervention,
would not have had any support in this regard before beginning their honours
year projects. In the context of the TESEP project the immediate challenge was
to upskill these students as rapidly as possible, which was carried out by means
of the academic and professional staff working together to assess the key
information literacy skills required, with reference to the assessment task and
the elements within the Seven Pillars model of information literacy produced by
The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL). The
technology aspects of information literacy are specifically cited by SCONUL,
stating that the “definition of information skills in higher education reflects twin
dimensions of the ‘competent student’ and the ‘information literate’ person, and
that “higher education in the UK should be more proactive in contributing to the
debate about the learning implications of an ‘information society”, hence the link
to the e-learning development aspirations of TESEP (The Society of College,
National and University Libraries, 1999). Also, effective and efficient
management of information, including the ability to determine veracity,
understand, extract meaning and then use appropriately, represents an
important employability skill.
SCONUL has continued to update the Seven Pillars model and it forms the basis
of many information literacy frameworks at UK HE institutions. The model
outlines a range of information and IT skills against a path of progression from
first-year undergraduates through to post-graduate researchers.
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Figure 1 SCONUL Pillars
During the TESEP work, the academic and librarian had to quickly decide the
skills the students needed, rather than consider this in the wider context of the
requirements of the programme. By using practical group work and instructor
led demonstrations in a computer laboratory it was possible to teach some new
information literacy skills and proceed quickly to engage the students in some
independent learning. However, while perceived to be useful and enjoyable by
the student group, this short intervention had limited success in improving the
overall quality of the individual written assignment, which still showed room for
improvement in terms of evidence of scholarly skills generally. If information
literacy skills had been developed progressively during previous years, it is likely
that the students would have had not only the practical abilities but the
confidence to engage further in more active, independent learning and that
would have improved their assessment performance.
It seemed also that the time was right to start developing an institutional
information literacy framework, mapping information skills criteria against levels
7 to 10 of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) levels (The
Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership, 2007). The criteria
were selected by using not only the SCONUL Seven Pillars, but also the
emerging work of the National Information Literacy Framework for Scotland,
which has been developed from research at Glasgow Caledonian University and
is particularly useful as it links learning outcomes using SCQF and shows how
scholarly skills can be linked and embedded within a curriculum. It could also
support initiatives associated with the recent focus on fostering research
teaching linkages as means of enhancing graduate attributes (The Quality
Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2006). The initial draft of a Napier
Information Literacy Framework, which details recent library initiatives and
resources for scholarly skills development, has been formally presented at the
Faculty and University Learning Teaching and Assessment Committee meetings
and at a staff conference. While this has prompted several interested responses
from those attending, it would seem that this information has not yet cascaded
further down to the rest of the academic staff. The mapping of skills against
SCQF levels and Napier library resources may be seen in Appendix A.
84
SCONUL proposed “that the development of the idea of ‘information literacy’
requires a collaborative and integrated approach to curriculum design and
delivery based on close co-operation between academic, library and staff
development colleagues” and this approach was taken to an extent within the
TESEP engineering project. The recent development of the Napier Information
Literacy Framework is helpful in moving on from TESEP, but only proposes how
collaboration may be done, rather than achieves it, and further work is required
to ensure that graduates acquire the necessary information skills as they
progress through their programmes. In terms of promoting staff collaboration,
the approach taken by Newcastle University in the development of their
Information Literacy Toolkit and Forum is of interest. Academic staff can choose
from a range of online learning objects mapped across curriculum and student
levels and they run an Information Literacy Forum, consisting of a group of
interested academics and library staff, which feeds back into the development of
the toolkit and fosters better collaboration.
At Napier the move to 20 credit modules and the redevelopment of the academic
year has created opportunities to establish strategic priorities and embed the
key lessons from TESEP in the guidelines for programme and module design,
including the development of scholarly skills (Napier University, 2007b). This
major curriculum development exercise, which was completed in session
2007/08, required each School to create a ‘culture’ or ‘ethos’ document in which
it stated how it would deal with the following aspects of provision:
85
descriptor has a section corresponding to the five priorities above in which
module leader may outline their approach.
CONCLUSIONS
The case is made for systematic development of scholarly skills in order to equip
students for active learning and is reflected in TESEP’s learner support and
conclusions papers (Napier University, 2007c and d), and the management
structure, policy and procedural framework now exists within Napier to achieve
the concurrent curriculum design described above. It is therefore up to those in
positions of academic leadership to translate this into on-going, operational
practice that is reflected in subsequent programme planning and review, in
addition to annual module appraisals, and to effect a change in culture to deliver
on the statements in the 20 credit ethos documents. Genuine concerns and
constraints must be acknowledged and overcome but, if successful, the proposed
approach should ensure a more satisfying learning, teaching and assessment
experience for students and staff, and be reflected in improvements in the
profile of graduates. However, this aim will be compromised if there is not
genuine collaboration among staff and recognition of the specialist skills that
each can contribute.
References
Benzies, A. (2006) Teaching Engineering with Technology. In: Harris, DMJ,
Clarke, RB, Ahmed, W and Morgan M (ed) Proceedings of The 23rd
International Manufacturing Conference, August 30 – September 1, 2006,
University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. Newtownabbey, University of Ulster.
Irving, C., and Crawford, J. (2007) A National Information Literacy Framework
Scotland (Working Draft). [Internet], Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian
University. Available from:
http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/ils/documents/DraftFramework1g.pdf [Accessed
17 October 2008]
Lea, M. and Street, B (1998) ‘Student Writing in Higher Education: An academic
literacies approach’. Studies in Higher Education, 23:2, pp.157-172. London,
Taylor and Francis.
Napier University. (2007a) TESEP Transform. [Internet], Edinburgh, Napier
University. Available from: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform [Accessed 17
October 2008]
Napier University. (2007b) The 20-Credit Handbook. [Internet], Edinburgh,
Napier University. Available from:
http://staff.napier.ac.uk/NR/rdonlyres/3EA9FCCE-9A50-415A-A779-
52D8BDB07656/5118/20CreditHandbookOnline2.pdf [Accessed 17 October
2008]
86
Napier University. (2007c) TESEP Evaluation Report: Learner Conclusions.
TESEP Transform [Internet], Edinburgh, Napier University. Available from:
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform/evaluation_report/files/conclusions_lear
ners.doc [Accessed 17 October 2008]
Napier University. (2007d) TESEP: Rethinking Learner Support. [Internet],
Edinburgh, Napier University. Available from:
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/transform//Rethinking_Learner_Support.pdf
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
Napier University. (2007e) Information Skills Online [Internet], Edinburgh,
Napier University. Available at: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/inform/main.html
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
Napier University (2008) Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy:
promoting learning for achieving potential. [Internet], Edinburgh, Napier
University. Available from: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/ed/pdf/LTA_2008.pdf
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
Scottish Funding Council (2007) TESEP Project report. [Internet], Edinburgh,
Scottish Funding Council. Available from:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningsfc/sfcbooklet
tesep.pdf [Accessed 17 October 2008]
The Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) (1999)
Briefing Paper: information skills in higher education. [Internet], London:
SCONUL. Available from:
http://www.SCONUL.ac.uk/groups/information_literacy/papers/Seven_pillars
2.pdf [Accessed 17 October 2008]
The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership (2007) Scottish
Credit and Qualifications Framework [Internet], Glasgow, Scottish Credit and
Qualifications Framework. Available at:
http://www.scqf.org.uk/AbouttheFramework/Overview-of-Framework.aspx
[Accessed 17 October 2008]
The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2007) Research-
Teaching Linkages: Enhancing Graduate Attributes [Internet],
Glasgow, The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. Available
at:
http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/themes/ResearchTeaching/default.as
p [Accessed 17 October 2008]
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APPENDIX A Table 1 Year 1 (SCQF Level 7)
88
APPENDIX A Table 2 Year 2 (SCQF Level 8)
89
APPENDIX A Table 3 Year 3/4 (SCQF Level 9/10)
90
AUTONOMY & AUTHORITY: CREATING A LEARNING COMMUNITY
ONLINE
Abstract
This paper explores how we might create or develop a learning community
online, and the implications of this for the role of the online tutor. Opinion is
divided regarding the ideal conditions to support the emergence of learning
communities, although there seems good agreement regarding the usefulness of
the online medium to support a social constructivist approach.
Introduction
This paper will explore how we might create or develop a learning community
online, and the implications of this for the role of the online tutor. In the
postgraduate programme in Clinical Education at Edge Hill University, a multi-
disciplinary professional development course for clinical educators, delivered by
means of 'blended learning', the Course Team have embraced what can be
termed a ‘social constructivist’ approach. Thus, the course has been designed
and taught using discussion as a major element of the learning experience (see
Brookfield & Preskill, 1999, 2005), and we therefore place great emphasis on
encouraging interactivity within the programme.
However, it is interesting to note that several years earlier, Johnson (2001) had
proposed that a Community of Practice can emerge within what he described as
a ‘designed community’, and so it would appear that our course context should
not be seen as a barrier to community formation.
Meanwhile, more recently, Hara and Hew (2007) have questioned whether the
same success factors hold good for a community that is deliberately created
91
rather than one which spontaneously emerges – an interesting consideration
when we are seeking to develop a learning community within the artificial
confines of an educational programme.
Online Interaction
So what can the online tutor do to promote the formation of learning
communities? And what is our role? Woo and Reeves (2007:15) remind us that
“One of the key components of good pedagogy, regardless of whether
technology is involved, is Interaction”, and this, therefore, appears to be a good
starting point in considering how we might encourage the formation of a learning
community.
In earlier work (Sherratt & Sackville, 2006) we explored discourse within the
online discussion board in our postgraduate programme, identifying the
achievement of true dialogue online, rather than the unconnected statements, or
‘serial monologue’ which a number of authors have commented on (see, for
example, Henri, 1991; Pawan et al, 2003; and Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).
However, whilst it is true that consideration of the content and context as well as
frequency of postings is necessary in order to gain a full picture of the overall
online learning experience, nevertheless, it is also clear that active engagement
within the online discussion board can contribute significantly to the learning
both of individual participants and the group as a whole. Furthermore, Rovai
(2002) has suggested that interaction is a major factor in creating a learning
community. Thus, despite the comments of Goodfellow and Hewling (2005),
noted above, nevertheless, interaction and the achievement of dialogue within
the online discussion board can only be considered to be advantageous.
In previous work, we have noted that the presence of what we have termed
“peer facilitators” has a huge impact on the development of dialogue (Sherratt &
Sackville, 2006), and if we accept Rovai’s (2002) proposition, noted above,
regarding the importance of interaction, then this therefore impacts significantly
on the formation of a learning community. Indeed, facilitating actions from
peers can clearly be seen to have a different impact than interventions from
tutors, and the dynamic created within the group is therefore also different.
Following on from this, we have also found that groups which are ‘tutor-focused’
do not develop dialogue or indeed group identity in the same way as more peer-
92
focused groups, a point also supported by Garrison (2006), leading us to
speculate further on the significant advantages of achieving peer-to-peer
dialogue.
Our speculations are supported by Thompson and MacDonald (2005: 244), who
point out that “conversation is pivotal to interaction”; while Garrison and
Cleveland-Innes (2005) suggest the importance of ‘social presence’ for the
development of online discourse. Dixson and colleagues (2006) also note that it
is important that students should feel comfortable to make social postings.
Meanwhile, Daniel et al (2003) go further and propose Social Capital as a vital
component of the learning community – although one might equally argue that
the social engagement of the group is an artefact of the existence of a sense of
community rather than in any way causal in nature.
But the question remains, as indeed we have also asked elsewhere (Sackville &
Sherratt, 2008) – are all of these students actually ready to be transformed?
Meyer and Land (2005) remind us that transformation can involve a very
uncomfortable journey, and also that many students tend to remain instead in
‘pre-liminal space’. This, then, begs the question as to whether all students are
also ready to become self-directed learners.
And so, despite our explicitly articulated social constructivist pedagogy, and the
opportunity for students to work together (and with tutors as peers), it appears
that not everyone agrees that the peer is a role that tutors should adopt.
Indeed, one of the CPD461 students complained of a “paucity of active input
from tutors” (Networked Learning Community CPD461, 2008), based on the fact
that substantially more ‘triggers’ were posed by students than by tutors –
despite the obvious benefit that the students had become more self-directed in
their learning, rather than remaining reliant on tutors to push forward their
understanding.
93
“instructors’ activity is an important factor in the success of online learning”.
More recently, Garrison and Cleveland-Innes have also commented (2005:
p137) “we find the leadership role of the instructor to be powerful in triggering
discussion and facilitating high levels of thinking and knowledge construction”;
and Celentin (2007) has advised that guidance from tutors will enhance the
achievement of meaningful learning. So contrary to our earlier-expressed ideal
of peer-facilitated learning, this implies that much more control should rest in
the hands of the tutor, leading to the position of the tutor as an authority figure.
On the other hand, Rovai (2002) reminds us that self-directed learners will not
respond well to an authoritarian approach on the part of the tutor; and Garrison
(2006:30) further suggests that “students need to assume some control or
ownership of the discussion”. Meanwhile, Carusi (2006:5) has proposed that
“the social relations become de-hierarchised: the teacher is no longer the central
– and ‘higher’ – authority, and learners collaborate with each other, each
learning through doing and each cooperating rather than competing with others
in pursuit of a shared goal”.
From this, a simple typology has emerged (Sherratt, 2008), shown in Figure 1,
below, which identifies whether students expect to work collaboratively, possibly
without “interference” from tutors, or perhaps welcoming them as peers (see
Quadrant A of Figure 1); or whether students are more tutor-focused, looking to
the tutor as an authority figure who will provide the ‘right’ answer, as shown in
Quadrant D of Figure 1.
Interestingly, we can see what we have termed ‘peer facilitators’ clearly located
in Quadrants A and B of Figure 1 (below), and it might be suggested, therefore,
that these two quadrants are where we will find conditions to support the
emergence of a learning community.
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Figure 1: Students’ need for tutor intervention in online discussion
This typology is also discussed in greater detail elsewhere (Sherratt, 2008), and
is a result of ongoing work. However, it already offers the tutor some insight
into the differing needs to be found within a single cohort, and as such, can offer
an explanation of why some groups might function ‘better’ and more
collaboratively than others, even within the same course context.
Once applied to future groups, it aims to assist the tutor to achieve the correct
level and type of intervention to support and stimulate students, without leaving
students feeling unsupported on the one hand, or stifling discussion and thereby
reducing both discourse and collaboration, (as Garrison (2006) points out), on
the other.
Conclusion
In this paper, I have explored some differing views on learning communities in
the online context, and have asked how tutors might help to facilitate their
emergence. I have referred to some of my current work in progress, and
proposed that the simple model to describe students’ expressed need for support
and intervention from tutors might offer some useful insights for the online
tutor. And I have suggested that by responding appropriately to students’
95
individual needs, and helping them to move into Quadrants A or B of the model,
we could more regularly and consistently to help to achieve a learning
community where students (and indeed tutors!) work collaboratively, learn
together, and act as co-constructors of knowledge.
References
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and Techniques for University Teachers. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Brookfield, S.D., & Preskill, S. (2005) Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools
and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. 2nd edition. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Carusi A. (2006) ‘Power and Agency in Online Text-based Collaborations’. E–
Learning, Vol. 3, No. 1. pp4-15.
Celentin, P. (2007) ‘Online Education: Analysis of Interaction and Knowledge
Building Patterns Among Foreign Language Teachers’. Journal of Distance
Education. Vol. 21, No. 3, pp39-58.
Charalambos, V., Michalinos, Z., & Chamberlain, R. (2004) ‘The Design of Online
Learning Communities: Critical Issues’. Educational Media International 41:2
– refereed Papers and Selected Papers from the Oslo Conference.
Daniel, B., Schwier, R.A., & McCalla, G. (2003) ‘Social Capital in Virtual Learning
Communities and Distributed Communities of Practice’. Canadian Journal of
Learning and Technology. Volume 29(3) Fall / automne, 2003.
Dixson, M., Kuhlhorst, M., & Reiff, A. (2006) ‘Creating Effective Online
Discussions: Optimal Instructor and Student Roles’. Journal of Asynchronous
Learning Networks. Volume 10, Issue 4 - December 2006. pp15-28.
Garrison, D.R. (2006) ‘Online Collaboration Principles’. Journal of Asynchronous
Learning Networks (JALN). Volume 10, Issue 1 - February 2006. pp25-34.
Garrison, D.R. & Arbaugh, J.B. (2007) ‘Researching the community of inquiry
framework: Review, issues, and future directions’. The Internet and Higher
Education 10:3 (2007), pp157–172.
Garrison, D.R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005) ‘Facilitating Cognitive Presence in
Online Learning: Interaction Is Not Enough’. The American Journal of
Distance Education, 19(3), pp133–148.
Garrison, D.R. & Kanuka, H. (2004). ‘Blended learning: Uncovering its
transformative potential in higher education’. Internet and Higher Education.
7 (2004), pp95–105.
Goodfellow, R. & Hewling, A. (2005) ‘Reconceptualizing Culture in Virtual
Learning Environments: from an ‘essentialist’ to a ‘negotiated’ perspective’.
E-learning 2(4), pp355 – 367.
Hara, N. & Hew, K.F. (2007) ‘Knowledge-sharing in an online community of
health-care professionals’. Information Technology & People. Vol. 20 No. 3,
pp235-261.
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through community design’. Campus-Wide Information Systems. Vol. 24
No. 3, 2007. pp162-173.
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No.1, pp3-12.
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practice’. The Internet and Higher Education 4:1 (2001), pp45–60.
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pp193-213.
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97
EMBEDDING THE TESEP 3E APPROACH IN THE PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATORS: A CASE STUDY OF THE MSC
BLENDED AND ONLINE EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
This paper explores the design of Napier University’s MSc Blended and Online
Education (MSc BOE), a part-time fully online programme for education
professionals seeking to further develop their pedagogical and practical
knowledge of technology-enhanced teaching and learning. The MSc BOE was
developed in parallel to the work that Napier University was undertaking as the
lead partner in the cross-institutional Transforming and Enhancing the Student
Experience through Pedagogy (TESEP) project. TESEP was driven by a ‘learners
in control’ ethos in the work it undertook to embed pedagogically sound, yet
creative and transformative ways of using current and emerging technologies to
enhance teaching, and particularly learning, across the partner institutions.
The 3E Approach was one of the main tools developed within TESEP as a means
of illustrating to practitioners what an embedding of the ethos and pedagogical
principles adopted by TESEP might look like in practice, within the redesign of
their own courses. The 3E Approach, and particularly the emphasis this places
on increasing learner control and autonomy through enhanced, extended and
empowered learning opportunities, was adopted as the blueprint for the design
of the MSc BOE. After outlining the TESEP project, and exploring the essence of
the 3E Approach, this paper describes how the 3E Approach was embedded in
practice within the MSc BOE with a specific focus on the three core modules.
After considering the views of participants on the MSc BOE, this paper concludes
by reflecting on the challenges of implementing the 3E Approach within the MSc
BOE, and also how it is influencing future programme developments.
‘Learners in control’ was the ethos at the heart of TESEP. In essence this
reflects the belief that we can most effectively help our learners to develop the
professional and broader knowledge and skills they need though providing
opportunities for greater learner autonomy, supported through engagement in
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local and wider learning communities that use current and emerging
technologies in meaningful ways that reflect how knowledge is being created and
shared in today’s world (Mayes, 2007). While a detailed consideration of this
ethos and the philosophy it is grounded within is not the purpose of this paper,
there are important challenges and implications here that include: changing
tutor and student roles; the need to think beyond the VLE to consider what we
can broadly refer to as ‘Web 2.0’ technologies offer in educational terms; and
recognising the more democratic and empowered way in which knowledge is
being shared and constructed in networked global society.
TESEP was concerned with addressing these issues, but more importantly the
opportunities they offered, by tackling them within pedagogic approaches that
could further enhance and, wherever possible, transform the learning and
teaching experience in ways that were sensitive to today’s and tomorrow’s
student, the needs of the tutor, and critically also to institutional needs and
challenges. Reflecting wider debate in the sector, these challenges were seen to
include widening access, pro-actively responding to increasing student diversity,
and the development of employability skills and other key attributes required in
the professional environment. Each partner institution also identified specific
areas for enhancement they wanted to focus on within TESEP, e.g. collaborative
curriculum design, FE-HE articulation, and placement-based learning.
In seeking to address the issues outlined above to meet the kinds of aims and
challenges described, TESEP was simultaneously about curriculum design, staff
development, and institutional policy and strategy. A key element of the work
undertaken involved an initial wave of practitioners from across the partner
institutions being seconded to TESEP for one or two days a week, to work on
designing or redesigning one of their own courses. Staff were drawn from a
range of subject areas including computing, art, joinery, accounting and
economics, nursing, drama, and engineering, with the courses being worked on
spanning SCQF (Scottish Credit Qualifications Framework) levels 4 to 11.
In being tasked to redesign an existing course or design a new one in a way that
embodied the TESEP ethos, the practitioners (who chose which course to focus
on, and ultimately how their course would be designed or redesigned) were
supported through a multi-faceted, blended staff development experience. This
set out to role-model the kinds of pedagogical approaches that TESEP was
seeking to promote and further embed, and involved cross-institutional mentor
groups, participant-driven workshops and online events, informal sharing of
ideas and resources, and engagement with ‘critical friends’ (pedagogical
specialists, staff developers, technology experts) from the FE and HE sectors.
The freedom and choice given to the seconded practitioners in terms of what to
work on within the context of the TESEP project, and many of the ways in which
they were supported in doing so, are mirrored within the nature of the MSc BOE.
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TESEP 3E APPROACH
The pedagogical foundations for TESEP were very much rooted in the social
constructivist perspective, and emphasised the need for greater learner
autonomy and control within learning communities where peers may be learners
on the same course, and also peers in wider local and global contexts.
As detailed in Mayes (2007), allied to this broad view was the idea that current
and emerging technologies, and particularly forms of social software, could
enable individuals and groups elsewhere to play a role in helping to discuss and
refine the understandings within the community, and could also help the
learning community itself to take increased ownership for finding and creating
the materials and ‘artefacts’ that would support their learning.
The overarching aim of putting these principles into practice was to realise the
‘learners in control’ ethos of TESEP as fully as possible within a particular course
context. However the concept of putting learners in control, and the related
notions of empowerment and transformation, are challenging to address and
were met by many important questions from practitioners. These included
questions around how much control is enough?, how do I build upon what I’m
already doing well?, what are the implications for tutors and students?, and what
do these kind of changes to learning and teaching look like in practice?
100
To help address these questions, and make the possibilities clearer, the TESEP
project developed the 3E Approach. This envisaged, with examples and further
guidance, the kind of transformation in learning and teaching encapsulated
within the TESEP ethos as involving a continuum of enhanced, extended and
empowered learning opportunities (described more fully in Smyth, 2007).
Shown in overview form in Figure 1, the 3E Approach tries to clarify the kinds of
ways in which it is possible to make changes to teaching practice that provide
learners with more control over their learning, and the role that technology can
play in supporting this process. In doing this, it attempts to show that
transformation in learning and teaching practice can be seen as an iterative
process for the tutor and their students, involving progressive changes that
move the learner further towards finding, using, creating and sharing knowledge
in ways that reflect the kinds of individual and collective responsibilities they will
have in the professional and broader societal contexts they are preparing for.
Links to relevant online case Students source and debate Students produce an online
studies for students to explore their own case studies online case study on a chosen topic
101
Figure 1. TESEP 3E Approach
There are clear parallels within the 3E Approach with long established
pedagogical theories and concepts, for example cognitive apprenticeship and
scaffolding (Brown et al, 1989; Collins et al, 1991), and furthermore the
literature is rich with models and frameworks designed to aid interpretation of
specific pedagogical principles (e.g. Van Merrienboer et al, 2002; Biggs and
Tang, 2008). While in this respect the 3E Approach is on long established
ground, it certainly proved to be a useful means for articulating and exploring
the aims of TESEP with the practitioners the project worked with, who seemed to
feel it was an accessible way to engage with the ideas it encapsulates.
Beyond the ways in which the 3E Approach informed the course redesign within
the context of the TESEP project), the 3E Approach has subsequently been
adopted in various ways by the TESEP partner institutions. At Carnegie College
the 3E Approach now forms the basis of the Learning and Teaching Framework,
while Edinburgh’s Telford College are currently revising their Learning, Teaching
and Assessment strategy around the 3E Approach and its related implications for
their provision. At Napier University, the 3E Approach has formed an important
part of the guidance given to staff in moving from a 15 to 20 credit modular
system, has been the focus of staff workshops, and has been integral to the
development, nature and outlook of the MSc Blended and Online Education.
Developed in parallel to the work being undertaken on TESEP, the MSc BOE
shared a common ethos with the TESEP project. The programme is collaborative
and practice-based, and from the outset participants work collectively and
individually on projects that are relevant to their own roles and interests, and
which include case studies, design and implementation projects, and evaluations
of technology-supported learning and teaching initiatives.
102
programme community, which includes online interaction with invited guest
experts and engagement within other online groups and communities.
The extent to which the MSc BOE is designed to meet developmental and
professional needs was recognised in June 2008 by the Staff and Educational
Development Association (SEDA), and any participant successfully completing
either of the three exit awards (PgCert, PgDip, MSc) now receives their own
individual accreditation against SEDA’s Embedding Learning Technologies award.
By ‘fully autonomous’ this does not mean expert and self-sufficient within every
aspect of blended and online education, but instead well equipped to assume
ownership of their own practice, with a rounded knowledge of what is
appropriate within their own contexts, and an understanding of how to keep
abreast and sustain their own development in blended and online education.
Introduction to Blended and Supporting the Blended and Curriculum Design and
Online Education (Module 1) Online Student Experience Development for Blended and
(Module 2) Online Learning (Module 3)
The three core modules for the programme which also comprise the PgCert BOE,
are: Introduction to Blended and Online Education (IBOE); Supporting the
Blended and Online Student Experience (SBOSE); and Curriculum Design
and Development for Blended and Online Learning (CDDBOL). Figure 2
provides an overview mapping of key aspects of the core modules to the 3E
Approach.
The three core modules are typically undertaken in the order shown, and while
each module features tasks and activities at each of the stages of the 3E
Approach, at a broad level of design the modules in their normal sequence map
to the successive stages of the 3E approach (Enhance, Extend, Empower).
A feel for how this works in practice is provided through considering the Thought
Discussions element of the IBOE module, which as the first module is primarily
focused on providing ‘enhanced’ learning opportunities. The Thought
Discussions essentially involve participants tackling a choice of questions relating
to the theme for a particular unit, and sharing their views, experiences, or
perspectives on associated readings, news items, or examples with the wider
group. The Thought Discussions are tutor facilitated, and work well as one
important way for each new cohort to begin engaging with the subject area, and
provide a good introduction to online discussion for those completely new to this.
There is a clear move from experience to applied practice and skills development
between these two discussion-based activities for modules 1 and 2. Within
module 3 CDDBOL, there is a further shift towards autonomy when the
participants are required to identify and begin engaging with an online or online-
supported professional community that could help support their continued
learning and development away from the programme, which is particularly
important given that some participants may exit with their PgCert after module
3. The professional communities the participant chooses to engage with can be
educational communities within their own subject area, or within the broader
area of blended and online education. By coming back into the module to share
what they have found, everyone is then exposed to a range of communities that
may offer developmental opportunities beyond their time on the programme.
104
In addition to the increased control participants take over their own learning, it
will hopefully be evident from Figure 2 that participants take increased
ownership of the programme itself, for example through the student-led
seminars discussed above, and in redesigning previous elements of the
programme as they become more experienced as online educators. This idea
that the programme itself is ‘up for grabs’ as a focus for discussion and critique
is fundamental to the nature of the programme, as is the idea of the programme
and as safe, collegiate platform for practicing and developing online tutor skills.
In tandem with increased control participants take over their learning and
aspects of the programme, the programme team themselves move between
tutoring, facilitating and ultimately co-learning roles. The programme tutors as
co-learners is another critical element to the outlook of the programme, which is
after all for already experienced educators, and which is seeking to meaningfully
exploit the promise and democratising potential of emerging technologies.
On the MSc BOE, while the VLE provides a central presence it is but one of a
range of spaces participants work within and across that includes blogs, wikis,
Second Life, and social bookmarking applications. Participants are also free and
actively encouraged to explore applications available elsewhere, and are
supported in harnessing them effectively within individual and group projects.
In all of the preceding discussion of TESEP, the 3E Approach and the MSc BOE,
there is repeated mention of learning communities, professional communities,
course community and so on. While sensitive to the debate around what
constitutes a ‘learning community’ or ‘professional community’ (without inferring
they are the same), and whether such communities can be created or create
themselves, the view of the MSc BOE programme team is a pragmatic one.
This is in many respects something that may be hoped for as natural outcome of
embedding what the 3E Approach represents into a programme of this type. It
certainly evidences the kind of learner autonomy the programme aims to
support the development of. It is also indicative of another view within the
105
programme team around the issue of ‘learning communities’, which is that it is
possible to ‘design in’ to a programme opportunities for Lave and Wenger’s
(1991) legitimate peripheral participation to occur, whereby novice members of
the community assume a more central position of expertise over time. Indeed,
the transition from active to engaged to autonomous learner within the 3E
Approach, and the way the MSc BOE tutors increasingly assume co-learning
roles with the programme over time, are both instantiations of this perspective.
PARTICIPANT VIEWS
While studying on a programme like the MSc BOE is not going to be without
challenges, not least due to the continual engagement over time that is required,
the programme aims to be fully transparent about what is required from
participants, and why the programme is designed in the way it is.
“I wanted to become a ‘Tutor 2.0’ – someone who can exploit the capabilities of
Web 2.0 technologies and critically utilise state of the art blended and online
learning pedagogies to create and maintain a learning environment befitting
21st-century learners’. The programme more than fulfils this for me.”
“This is a very hands on course with many different ways of reaching the learner
and catering to many different learning styles, supported by current research
articles in this area…This will help me to design and deliver blended learning
more effectively, hopefully without making the mistakes of past initiatives.”
IMPLEMENTATON CHALLENGES
The levels of engagement within the MSc BOE, and the tangible benefits that
evaluation and coursework indicate are being experienced, is encouraging
evidence that the design of the programme is supporting learning as intended.
Despite this, there have been challenges and revelations in embedding the 3E
Approach within the design of the programme, and more generally in facilitating
a programme of this kind. One is in helping to prepare participants to learn in
increasingly more empowered ways, in contexts where current and emerging
technology is to be a meaningful enabler of effective learning. This point is a
general one that will apply across many course contexts. However in the
context of the MSc BOE, in which a rich range of technologies are to be used as
meaningful enablers and where the meaningful use of technology is in itself a
topic for study, finding ways to enable participants to quickly overcome technical
issues to engage in the pedagogical ones has been particular concern. This has
been tackled by ensuring that the first week of any module is dedicated to
106
technical and general module orientation, in which a series of ‘light’ activities are
used to ensure the main tools to be used are explored, and that participants and
the programme team have useful opportunities to interact informally.
The online discussions across the programme quickly become extremely busy,
and there has been a focus here on helping participants negotiate these levels of
activity in a meaningful way. To enable every participant to gain all they can
from their time on the programme, and ensure it meets their own development
needs, it has also been important to take time to help each participant to plan
ahead particularly in relation to negotiated individual projects. This requires
some discussion early on in the programme, and at points throughout, and has
been aided by the introduction of Personal Development Tutor arrangements.
An obvious question to ask of a programme like the MSc BOE is the amount of
development and facilitation time it requires from the programme team. The
main challenge here has been in getting the overarching framework and
progression between modules right. Although there is an inevitable front-
loading in development time and tutor-led activities for module 1, through its
alignment with the Enhance stage of the 3E Approach, through subsequent
modules the programme shifts considerably for the tutors towards being more
heavily focused on facilitation and being participants themselves.
CONCLUSION
Within the MSc BOE the 3E Approach has provided an invaluable framework for
embedding the kinds of progressive pedagogical practice the TESEP project was
committed to promoting within the professional development of educators. One
hope is that in turn the practitioners on the programme will embed some of what
they have experienced and explored within their own teaching and learning
contexts. Designing the MSc BOE according to the 3E Approach required careful
consideration and the meeting of particular challenges, but the usefulness of the
3E Approach as a framework for thinking about course design is continuing to
inform current developments on the MSc BOE. This includes through exploring
ways in which to build in further ‘legacy learning’ opportunities, and further
opportunities for engagement in wider professional communities. Perhaps most
indicative of the direction the programme may take in a further embedding of
the 3E Approach, and associated philosophy, is the development of a module
that will take the ‘learners in control’ and ‘tutors as co-learners’ concepts to the
next level by allowing participants who have successfully completed their PgCert
BOE to become co-tutors for new cohorts coming on to the programme.
107
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108
CHOICE, COLLABORATION AND WEB 2.0: WHAT WE CAN LEARN
FROM THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE OF TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED
EDUCATION
INTRODUCTION
In the past few decades higher education has gone through a huge amount of
change. Two of the factors in this change which have led to dramatic upheaval
are:
1. Widening Access
2. Mode of Delivery
1. The widening access movement of the past decade and beyond has led to
the present day’s hugely diverse student population. In the mid ‘90s the
Tomlinson Report (FEFC, 1996) called for the promotion of ‘inclusive education’,
and this idea led to national programmes such as the Department for Education
and Skills’ Excellence Challenge in 2001. This morphed into the Aimhigher
scheme (DirectGov, 2008) which now operates at the local level all over the
country, helping young people access higher education. Additionally, the
HEFCE’s widening participation funding programme supports schemes which give
many students from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to study. With
this increasing diversity, however, comes a much more varied set of learning
styles, abilities and background knowledge.
Teaching styles must change to accommodate this diversity, but since this
particular group have not attended HE in the past we have no experience to
draw on with which to make this change. The only people who can describe
how these people learn best are the learners themselves: we need to hear the
student voice.
109
“The experts in learner experience are the learners” (Creanor, Gowan, Trinder &
Howells, 2006) and only a student can say what works for them when using
internet technologies in an educational context. In order to use these
technologies to their best advantage we need to hear the student voice.
This paper draws mainly from the author’s blog reflecting on life as a student on
the course. It was maintained weekly over nearly two months of the SBOSE
module. Also included is one quote from a discussion posting made by the
author during the previous module, IBOE.
Two particular subjects taken from this particular student voice were chosen as
focuses for this paper:
Group work is an often used and valuable learning tool in both face-to-face and
online learning (Palloff & Pratt, 2004) but in a fully online context collaboration is
made difficult by geographical distribution. The MSc BOE includes a number of
group assignments, however, so this difficulty had to be surmounted using the
communication tools available, both synchronous and asynchronous.
110
student support at their own institutions. This report could then be delivered
online, for example a group-edited wiki or a narrated presentation. Groups
consisted of between three to five people and in general no more than two of
each group lived in the same geographical location. Groups were given the
choice as to how they would communicate but were encouraged to regularly
meet using synchronous communication software, Elluminate being one
example.
The following student voice (Quote 1) is taken from a reflective blog post made
by the author near the beginning of the group project:
“…the group work project began nearly two weeks ago now and the
learning contracts were due in at the end of last week. Well, ours has
only just been finished and hard work it was…
111
The first piece of evidence leading us towards the requirement for asynchronous
communication is that the student states that a major requirement for his group
was flexibility, both in terms of time and location, but synchronous
communication takes away this flexibility, allowing attendance from any location,
but not at any time. He states that there were times when he missed vital
synchronous meetings due to other commitments. Asynchronous collaboration
allows the true flexibility mentioned above, allowing remote participants to
communicate truly any time, any place. Obviously the participants pay for that
flexibility in the form of a far higher time lag but, as stated by the student, this
lag didn’t seem to cause a difficulty.
This finding could perhaps be attributed to the evolving nature of people’s work
and leisure time, with many now having constant access to the internet during
both. It has already been discussed that 74% of children aged 11 – 16 have
social networking accounts (Luckin et al., 2008), thus making them significant
users of the internet. Therefore the HE students of the future, and perhaps the
current cohort, will spend a large part of their week on or near a computer,
allowing the constant ability to check bulletin boards, email, wikis and blogs. In
this context, asynchronous communication can and often does proceed at a
reasonably fast pace. There will always be some that spend less time on and
are less enthused towards their computers but statistics show that the number
of internet users is growing and so these people are becoming more rare
(National Statistics, 2008).
The following student voice (Quote 2) was taken from a reflective blog post
made by the author after the group project was completed. It sums up the
author’s view as a student having completed an online collaborative task:
“…The trials and tribulations of getting four people together online at the
same time have been far more numerous than I would have expected.
…we also agree that an hour online is probably equivalent to around a 15-
minute face-to-face meeting, through both technical issues and practical
limitations of the medium.
Two interesting points can be taken from this statement: the first is how
inefficient the group seemed to find synchronous communication, and the
second is the group’s novel approach to asynchronous communication.
Taking the first point, the inefficiency of synchronous communication in this case
may be explained by various technical issues that plagued the use of Elluminate
throughout the module. Elluminate requires that Javascript be enabled and a
112
microphone and headphones set up in advance. Discussions often started with
5-10 minutes of teething problems and small problems would creep in
throughout. This was also compounded by the fact that by default only one
person could speak at a time, making communication less efficient. Students did
experiment with two-way communication but time-delays in the software made
this confusing and frustrating to use at times.
These problems would most likely lessen as students become more used to
using the software. A possible solution could include further training in the use
of whatever synchronous communication platform is chosen. An alternative may
be an initial non-assessed group project, thus allowing learning time with less
consequence.
The second point raised by the student voice in Quote 2 is that the group here
seemed to come up with their own way of maintaining asynchronous
communication which could be useful in other contexts. A common failing in
discussion forums is lack of participation breeding lack of participation. As the
Pedagogy and Learning Technology says, there is ‘nothing more off-putting than
an empty message board’ (Smyth & Mainka, 2006). By assigning someone to
post a message every day they encouraged group visits even if only from a
social point of view. This would lead to quicker responses when important
messages were posted and so led to the fast paced asynchronous
communication referred to in Quote 2.
113
options were very different and provided a serious element of control for the
student.
The following student voice (Quote 3) is an excerpt from the author’s very first
reflective blog post demonstrating the thought processes resulting from such a
choice.
“[Here are] the reasons why I chose to do a blog for this part of the
coursework…
The following is an excerpt from the very last post of the same student reflecting
on how the blog has worked as a learning tool and assessment method.
114
Various parts of both quotes 3 and 4 seem to highlight one of the main
advantages of using blogging in a learning context – the encouragement and
motivation to reflect. The importance of reflection is demonstrated by the TESEP
project in its Pedagogical Principles document which emphasises that “teaching
by telling doesn’t work” (Mayes, 2007). The student must be encouraged to
follow a constructivist learning path – to reflect on materials and form their own
mental maps of information learned. This is a process requiring the student to
connect the dots, tie it in with previous knowledge and re-present the
information (Kearsley, 2008) and this exact process is described by the student
above when creating their blog postings.
Encouraging this deeper reflection is often a difficult task. The dialogue above,
however, seems to demonstrate two factors by which blogging specifically can
produce this encouragement:
Both points above depend on the cohort of students creating a network of blogs
which are all visible to each other, unlike some students on the MSc BOE who
kept their blogs private. If this network is in place, however, the student voice
above would seem to indicate that public blogging can provide a highly effective
way of motivating the students to take part in reflection.
Backing this up is the student voice below (Quote 5) taken from one of the
author’s posts on the discussion boards in the first module, IBOE:
This is a very interesting student voice in that it demonstrates one reason why
students are engaged and encouraged by the use of Web 2.0 technologies – it
allows the perception that their work has value in the wider world. From the
quote above we can see that students consider the web a place of value and
something worth contributing to, as also demonstrated by the large percentage
of school students subscribed to social networking sites building and maintaining
real relationships (Luckin et al, 2008). The affordances and control offered by
Web 2.0 technologies, such as easy content creation and dissemination, allows
the tutor to create tasks which involve students contributing to this world in a
real sense. These findings seem to agree with Kearsley and Schneiderman’s
(1999) Engagement Theory which advocates greater engagement in students
115
when work is placed in an external context, or given value outside of the
classroom. Both student voices shown in this section seem to advocate that
blogging and Web 2.0 in general can easily facilitate this type of contextualising
and control of the outside world leading to greater engagement.
Another point that could be drawn from quotes 3 and 4 is the idea of a learning
partnership between student and tutor. By offering students a choice in how
they are assessed they are brought into the decision making process, thus giving
them a sense of control and ownership.
Naturally, the question arises of whether the average student will always take
the responsibility of their choice seriously, or will they simply expend vast
amounts of time and energy (far more than they do on the coursework) finding
the path of least resistance? It could be argued that provided both assessment
choices are written to meet the course assessment requirements then the choice
will benefit at least some students in the way demonstrated above and simply
not affect others. Those that choose what they think is the easiest will still
satisfy assessment criteria, but those that choose responsibly will gain
ownership and control and hopefully perform better as result.
The area of student control is, of course, not restricted to the area of online
learning and learning technology, but it enters the context of this paper when it
is considered that ownership and the aforementioned value of work could
amplify the effect of each other. It was discussed previously that Web 2.0
technologies allow students to publish their work in the wider world, thus adding
value to the product and increasing their desire to “perform” well. It could be
speculated that the extra element of ownership generated by having a hand in
setting that learning task would amplify both the sense of value and the desire
to ‘perform’. Therefore, Web 2.0 technologies could be seen as an ideal platform
for providing control to the student as the sense of value and ownership would
work hand-in-hand. This is something which cannot be fully confirmed by the
data in this paper but which would be interesting to explore in the future.
CONCLUSION
As discussed, this research was considered worthwhile due to the dramatic
changes in both the type of learner attending higher education and the changes
in delivery method used to teach them. The experiences of the student herein
116
can help to point educators in the right direction when developing courses to
engage more diverse cohorts and to teach well over different delivery methods.
Firstly, with regards to collaboration, this paper has indicated that the student of
the future will prefer academic communication to proceed via an asynchronous
medium provided that certain approaches are followed in its use. The large
benefit of synchronous communication – the ability for quick, real-time
responses – is no longer significant enough to compensate for the lack of
temporal flexibility it affords. This is due to the fact that students can often
respond in asynchronous environments relatively quickly as online
communication in general is now a significant part of their lives. If guidelines
are put in place that require or recommend regular postings then students will
usually visit often. This is an important insight as collaboration online is likely to
become more common as online learning grows. The communication methods
used in these collaborations are key to their success.
Secondly, this paper has shown evidence that public blogging is a very useful
tool in encouraging the type of reflection required in a constructivist learning
approach. The enjoyment drawn from writing and teaching others combined
with the ‘pressure to perform’ can produce very good results according to the
case study presented above. This is underpinned by the fact that Engagement
Theory (Kearsley & Schneiderman, 1999) seems to apply to public blogging in
that it contextualises students’ work in the outside world thus giving it greater
value in their eyes.
Lastly, the student voice presented in this paper seems to confirm the value of
student control in online learning and demonstrates that when given the choice
of assessment types using various learning technologies they will take the
decision seriously. The extra sense of ownership derived from this control could
well amplify the student’s sense of value in Web 2.0 generated content thus
making student control in the Web 2.0 environment an even more potent
learning tool.
One thing that is obvious from the student voice included in this paper is that a
huge amount of useful information resides in the opinions and experiences of the
thousands of students currently using learning technology on a regular basis.
Only by drawing information from these learning experience experts can
educators create learning materials that cater to wider audiences and make
proper use of the new delivery methods available to them.
References
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dir/downloads/page_documents/research/web2_technologies_ks3_4.pdf
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118
CAN HIGHER EDUCATION ENABLE ITS LEARNERS’ DIGITAL
AUTONOMY?
INTRODUCTION
The extent to which the read/write web, or Web 2.0, can enhance inclusion,
engagement and learner agency within higher education [HE] curricula is a focus
for current e-learning research (Ebner et al. 2007; Hall, 2008a). The
implications of innovative, social and networked technologies for the
development of learners’ personal responsibility and decision-making impact
both curriculum delivery and design processes, where academic staff recognise
the pedagogic advantages that are available through these tools (Franklin and
van Harmelen, 2007). Moreover, the blurring of the boundaries between social
spaces and formal learning contexts (Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC), 2007) influences participation in on-line environments (Hall, 2006; Shea,
2006), and the extent to which learners digital autonomy can be enabled
(TESEP, 2008; Centre for Excellence in Institutional E-learning Services (Ulster,
2008a).
This paper scopes the outcomes of a thematic study of the voices of both
learners and tutors in one UK HE institution. These voices highlight how
epistemological innovation is impacted by: the contextual control available to
users; the rules that underpin access and participation; and the feedback
received from associations within those contexts. By addressing these
curriculum issues, it is argued that the read/write web can and should be used
proactively by educators to enable learners to develop their autonomy in
situated, personal spaces, and thereby enhance the production of educational
outputs.
119
Recent studies on the student experience in HE (Conole et al., 2006) highlight
that a framework of technologies, including both institutional and non-
institutional tools, are crucial in connecting students’ informal and formal
learning. As McGee and Diaz (2007) note:
applications defined as ‘Web 2.0’ hold the most promise [for teaching and
learning] because they are strictly web based and typically free, support
collaboration and interaction and are responsive to the user. These
applications have great potential to be used in way that is learner-
centred, affordable and accessible for teaching and learning purposes (p.
32).
However, Trinder et al. (2008, p. 6) raise a note of caution, especially for the
role of staff as facilitators of learning within user-centred learning networks,
given ‘misconceptions surrounding the affordances of the tools, and fears
expressed about security and invasion of personal space’.
The read/write web is used to promote active citizenship and shared political
involvement (MyBarackObama.com, 2008) and decision-making. Organisations
such as Amnesty International and Oxfam regularly use social networking
120
software like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo to lever individual agency for their
current campaigns (Amnesty International, 2008; Oxfam, 2008). The interplay
between these organisations and web applications enables disparate groups of
individuals to associate voluntarily with each other around themes or interests.
In coming together to discuss, make decisions and act, individuals can
acknowledge and respect personal differences. In turn, this frames a more
democratic pedagogy and toolset, through which individuals are empowered to
ask meaningful questions (Friere, 1972; Illich, 1977). Moreover, it might also
emancipate the learner’s role in her/his educational experience (Haggis, 2006;
Sullivan, 2008).
Within HE curricula this type of engagement plays out with a focus upon
autonomous learning through: independence; informed decision-making; self-
direction and personal ownership of learning; confidence in taking control over
the means of production; and developing domain-specific and personal mastery
(Ulster, 2008a; Yorke and Longden, 2008) in formal and informal spaces.
Practitioners, institutions and students need to understand how the appropriate
integration of informal and formal education, alongside the development of
independent, academic learning skills, can be managed within situated, self-
managed learning contexts (REAP, 2008) that might be described in socio-
constructivist or connectivist (Siemens, 2008) terms.
At each level personal actions and decision-making are socially constructed and
may be connected to Wenger’s (1998) ‘communities of practice’ model, and/or
Garrison and Anderson’s (2003) ‘community of inquiry’ model.
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Connectivism has attracted criticism as an invalid theory of learning (Kerr,
2007), which prescribes an approach for teaching that simply frames the
development of learning environments and tasks. Moreover, its practical
implementation raises many issues for users to consider, around: identity
presentation and formation; engagement, agency and marginalisation; privacy
and security; and developing technological confidence. However, where a
connectivist manifesto for learning is developed, both within the context of user-
generated and participative technologies and alongside socio-constructivism, it
can begin to frame the development of PLEs.
122
participation with user-centred media and within groups that make sense to the
individual. The key is the process of learning and how the learner becomes an
independent, self-aware actor. However, by integrating and making explicit the
elements that focus upon the development of the learner’s personal aims,
her/his feedback mechanisms or confidence in network-based, signal-processing,
and the rules that operate within networks, personal ways of developing mastery
can be addressed (Hall, 2008b).
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The ability to judge, make decisions and act upon them is a function of control
over the means of production within a social setting, and gives individuals the
opportunity to engage with and reshape the environments in which they operate.
Authentic decision-making is embraced where power and control are devolved,
so that a broadcast model of education morphs to become one which is
interactive (Papert, 1993; Piaget, 1932). For Sachs (2000) such devolution
must be based on trust and a sense of liberty, which together provide a means
to engage with difference.
The social spaces in which we exist, and the shared values that frame them, are
pivotal in promoting our social freedoms, interdependence and decision-making.
It is through conversations with the users and editors of these spaces that a
fuller manifestation of Anderson's (2007) core, read/write web concepts
becomes apparent. Each of these concepts, namely user-generated content, the
power of the crowd, data on an epic scale, an architecture that supports
participation, network effects, and openness in content and computer code,
affects and is affected by individual autonomy and engagement.
Anderson notes (2007, p. 53) how ‘the crowd, and its power, will become more
important as the Web facilitates new communities and groups’, which in turn will
‘challenge conventional thinking on who exactly does things’, and who can
access, process and mash-up ‘the huge amounts of data that Web 2.0 is
generating’. This process of challenging and reconceptualising is based upon the
control of tools, access to and participation within a range of networks, and the
facilitation of critical literacies both within and beyond the curriculum. Therefore,
evaluating the spaces in which users come to terms with themselves, others,
and their own means of production is critical in understanding how the
read/write web impacts upon autonomy in HE.
EVALUATION
A note on context and evaluation
The discussion that follows pivots around the impact of the deployment of read/
write technologies within one UK university. The evaluation is designed to
analyse conversations about emergent curriculum approaches, in order to
examine how the tools provided are being embedded. It focuses upon the
triangulation of two data sources.
1. In-depth interviews and on-line focus groups with 148 students at all levels,
including postgraduate, in all five University faculties between 2005-08; and
2. In-depth interviews with 11 staff before, during and after they introduced
read/write technologies into their curricula.
The evaluator did not focus conversations upon the implications of the
read/write web for developing autonomy. Rather, the approach engaged with
understanding the systematic implementation of e-learning innovations and their
impact on learning and teaching. This accords with the view of Reason (2003,
124
106) that the ‘fundamental strategy of action research is to ‘open communicative
space’ and help the emergence of ‘communities of inquiry’.’ This approach
becomes rigorous through consensual participation. Thematic content analysis
was used in order to unpick and capture the emergent themes from the
interviews. The interviews were conducted and the coding scheme was framed
and tested by the same evaluator in order to maintain an internal consistency of
approach (Boyatzis, 1998).
In part student expectations for more control within an environment are shaped
by their autonomy in relation to the tasks and tools at hand, and understanding
the point of a tool contextualised by a task. In light of this, one tutor focused
upon a shared culture that emphasised deliberation and feedback: ‘The wiki will
help create a culture that is less restrictive where students can configure the
space and theme pages or comments.’ This type of facilitated deliberation and
action enables students to find ‘the right place’ for tools and needs to be
negotiated, especially where teams of staff deliver a unit of the curriculum.
According to one level three learner ‘the variance [in approach] between staff is
confusing – this is the same module but different things are going on. We need
a conversation about consistency of approach.’ However, a level one student
liked the flexibility offered where his teaching team used read/write tools that
‘are easy and open software so we can create a structure that we manage [sic.].’
125
Scoping autonomy through access and participation
One level two student felt that access to technologies that supported his out-of-
class participation was important in enabling him to model his thinking
because that's when you really get to try things out and learn by trial and
error. By doing this you get more of a feel for how you might use the
technologies in your work. It all becomes more concrete and less
abstract.
This view was echoed by a PG Cert HE participant who argued that her students
valued the use of wikis for group project because this allowed them ‘to work
collaboratively [and] let’s them quickly share links – so in a sense it is more
about the efficiency of input’. A positive rationale for personal engagement in
particular contexts underpins active participation. For some students the
rationale was the personal efficacy of participating. A postgraduate learner
highlighted that access to read/write tools ‘gave me a chance to practice with
others, to do it for myself… to apply the learning, test out new skills, and
highlight any problems.’ This places value upon a curriculum that connects
personalised ways of working with adaptive tools.
These connections were viewed more positively by learners where tutors frame a
space that encourages autonomy. A student on a different programme stated
that ‘if they [lecturers] just put their PowerPoints up I become lazy – is there
any point in attending? Especially where there is no interaction.’ A peer
extended this to focus upon the sharing of ideas: ‘there is some fear of the
plagiarism [on the open web], but we just need to agree rules of engagement’.
For a member of staff this participative application of read/write tools was crucial
because ‘these tools help them to share and ask someone else if they have
problems. I want [them] to see reading as a social activity and a conversation’.
For some cohorts of students, association as a group using tools outside the
control of the teaching team was critical in building a rationale for access and
participation. One postgraduate argued that ‘we built the community between
us and now I am less apprehensive about getting feedback. It removed the fear
of isolation’. This approach was empowering for a level two student who argued
that ‘the lecturer actually uses the technology and discusses it with us.’ This
tutor went on to state that these read/write tools would affect ‘participation in
the formation of their own project [group] identity, it will be interesting to see
how this affects their overall [programme-based] sociability’.
This type of participation, within a context that respects the differences between
students and fosters a space for autonomy, was echoed by a separate lecturer:
‘The Web2.0 software is ‘owned’ and editable by them, and they can see what
each other have done and all are free to comment... within a set of guidelines
that promote active interest’. The level of active interest, facilitated by local
environmental control and concomitant participation, spurs decision-making
about threshold concepts and academic knowledge. For one learner, active
participation was stimulated by user-centred social networks that have the
‘advantage for more higher-level learning where actually students are self-
managing and communicating with each other and learning from that
interaction.’
126
Scoping autonomy in external networks
Most interactions within a curriculum are fixed within institutionalised spaces.
However, for some students external associations with validated others hold
most value. In these contexts, belonging to and engaging with non-institutional
friendship groups and associations validates actions. A level one student
highlighted that the extension of personal skills in virtual worlds, like Second
Life, was forged out of shared interests between wider groups of people. He
noted that
the first thing we did was explore places that looked good and where
people had already solved the problems we had. We talked to them about
this about how they had solved problems. They talked to us because we
were using the same language, and they could get something from us.
One of his peers went on to argue that this impacted his creativity: ’I can
understand the programming but it is the creative side that has changed,
because I have had to work outside our normal group.’
This sense of shared, open validation was important for one programme team:
‘We encourage students to share their resources via wikis, del.icio.us, and other
open applications’. This demonstrates a mastery over more than the
programme’s intended outcomes, but also the broader role of trust and validity
in the production of personal and social assets. This link between tools and
people engages a set of complex approaches towards decision-making, based
upon association and dialogue. One student highlighted that this complexity was
forged out of shared interests, and trustful, external contexts for action and
decision-making, which ‘helps build my identity and helps my work become
original and authentic. It gives me inspiration.’ This demonstrates the strength
of external associations, based upon both common interests and a depth of
conceptual understanding, underpinned by a value-set made real by control over
the deployment of read/write technologies.
127
I think it's quite likely that whatever the University provides people will
use other tools that perhaps they did before coming to Uni[versity], such
as MySpace, to manage their groups and friends. We need to look at how
to make it as painless as possible to use other things alongside whatever
the Uni[versity] uses.
There is still a risk of marginalising some learners and staff, where partnership-
based pedagogic models are used to promote personalised learning contexts or
PLEs. This is particularly important given the political control and management
of a validated curriculum by HE staff. In this way, academic and support staff
need to be able to develop a meaningful pedagogical approach to the
deployment of read/write web technologies, allied to problem-based tasks. As
participants develop an autonomous learning strategy, the clarity of links
between structured activities in various learning networks, and personal
reflections on achievement became pivotal in forging an empowering PLE.
Therefore, professional development for facilitating tutors within programme
teams is critical in extending learner-autonomy.
The capacity of the read/write web to improve the opportunities for people to
work together to shape and solve problems is pedagogically important. In
validating individual stories and beliefs, and in crystallising themes around
control, participation and external association, these tools give learners
opportunities to ameliorate marginalisation both through dialogue and a sense
that the power relationships within any space have a chance to be
democratically-framed. Thus, engagement with a mix of institutional and non-
institutional applications, which collectively shape the means for the production
of educational outcomes, frames a context in which autonomy can be developed.
Moreover, where students enter a formal pedagogic process with their actions,
decisions and values already proactively informed by external engagements,
there is the hope of further personal, epistemological enfranchisement in the
cause of active citizenship.
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LEARNING AND COMMUNITY
ABSTRACT
Learning is in some sense or senses a communal activity, even if not necessarily
a face to face one. But in what sense? There is no agreement about this. This
paper briefly surveys the ways in which other people may help learning. It
draws particular attention to issues that conflict with simplistic assumptions
about freedom, privacy and sociability in relation to learning.
INTRODUCTION
A perennial student plaint is “nobody knows my name or who I am”. This seems
to voice a need for social community in institutional learning. Yet learning is in
some other sense already inherently communal or social: almost all we learn in
formal education comes not from our own experience of the world but from
others. Yet again, peer interaction is increasingly seen as important to promote
in HE (higher education). Partly this is to save staff time and so money; but in
fact it is for deeper and longer-standing reasons: peers, it is argued, support
learning in ways staff cannot. Thus implicitly there are quite different views of
what the important “social” aspect of learning is, quite different visions of how
community matters in learning. One is Vygotsky’s and Lave’s: you need to
learn personally from experts, like apprentices from masters. Another vision is
Newman’s and Illich’s: the best learning is from interaction with equals. The
educational literature is full of such voices, but they mostly act as if deaf to each
other. What is the space of educational forces here, and are they inherently
contradictory or is there the possibility of synthesis? What does learning have to
do with community, the academic with the social?
There may be four main roots to the multiple usage. In the literature dealing
with HE (higher education), possibly the single largest use of the term refers to
active interventions to increase first year student-student interaction in ways
relevant to learning. This approach was introduced in 1984 at Evergreen State
College. It may identify sets of students with the most overlap in course
enrolments, and may coordinate their work e.g. in an “integrative seminar”. The
idea explicitly behind it is creating shared intellectual experience with student’s
new peers (e.g. Alexander, Penberthy, McIntosh, & Denton; 1996).
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A second usage for the phrase may originate with Brown & Campione (1990),
who used “community of learners” and “learning community”. They saw a link
between Lave’s ideas of situated learning and apprenticeship, and new
possibilities in formal classrooms which they were developing. In their work,
learners produced learning materials themselves, and taught other students the
subject matter (biology) in a community of equals; but acquired learning skills
by apprenticeship from teachers who were not subject experts but did model
learning skills. Few of those who now use the phrase are referring to anything
like such a rich mix of features; yet Brown herself was certainly not alluding to
the full range of ways in which community relates to learning.
The third root is simply the vast range of possible meanings arising from the way
we can all find relevant associations between “learning” and “community”. This
makes the phrase continually attractive to its many different users, yet also
makes it hard to share precise meaning. Some authors simply use “learning
community” as a catchphrase for any set of learners: they might just as well
say “the students on the course”. While the false presupposition of a common
meaning is annoying in the scholarly literature, the great range of associations is
also an opportunity to uncover some puzzles that may eventually allow us to
improve practice.
The fourth major root of the term “learning community” is its long established
use in the literature on Adult Education, where it is used to discuss the
relationship between learning, groups of learners, and their surrounding
community. Similarly it has been used to refer to how a school relates to the
community around it e.g. DfEE (1999). Even within this usage there are several
distinct ideas:
• One is for groups of schools that form a supply chain e.g. a secondary
school and all the primary schools that feed into it. By forming a
community, these can improve things such as whether children acquire the
knowledge needed for a smooth transition between them.
• Home culture: thought to be the reason that in the USA, Asian American
children outperform Anglo Americans who outperform African Americans.
That is, success at school is strongly affected by how the culture or
attitudes of the home interact with it.
• Coordination of activities in and out of schools within a community by
families, schools, and out of school activities; i.e. the coordination of formal
and informal learning. A stronger version of this is that some academic
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subjects in fact tacitly assume that the child does thousands of hours of
related practical work as a hobby. Thus a child who reads several books a
week as leisure is obviously likely to outperform in English a child who
never reads except at school; a boy who spends time building and mending
electrical and mechanical devices will have a far better grounding for
science and engineering than a child who thinks these are to be studied
only in school. This emerged, among other places, in a study of why so few
women used to get and keep places in computer science at Carnegie
Mellon: it was not that the women were stupid or lazy, but the men just
took for granted working extremely long hours at it “for fun” and had done
so for years before they got to university: this gave them a grounding
which many of the courses took for granted, but that merely excellent
students did not have (Margolis & Fisher, 2002).
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knowledgeable people, e.g. teacher and pupil. One of the relatively rare cases
of applying that in HE for/to students is described in Dunlap (2006). It is a good
fit there, since this was a course for turning graduates into researchers, able to
participate in that community.
TEACHER MONITORING
One aspect of “community” is currently coming to prominence in the movement
to break up secondary schools into smaller units of about 350 pupils, rather than
over 1,000 (Wetz, 2006). The idea is that, although the majority of pupils do
well in huge schools with different teachers for each subject, disaffection and
failure rates are heavily influenced by whether there is a staff member who
effectively monitors each pupil’s work as a whole and knows both pupil and their
family well. Chinese schools do this; it is a growing movement in the USA; some
are calling for it in the UK. It may not be about tutoring on the subject matter
itself, but about a) whether the child feels part of a community, noticed; b)
whether their work is monitored so that even if they express difficulties only by
not doing things, rather than by asking for help, this is quickly responded to.
There are a series of important issues here. Does “community” really mean
teacher-pupil not peers? Students complain if no teacher knows their name, and
really value it when they do; and this appears to be independent of whether they
have good friends in the class.
Do staff have two tasks, best thought of as quite separate rather than assuming
that doing one will cover the other automatically? The successful schools aren’t
merely smaller, but rather they ensure that for each child there is one teacher
looking out for them across all subjects i.e. a separation of the functions of
specialist content teaching and of monitoring each pupil’s work as a whole. This
latter function involves: a) monitoring each pupil’s attendance of school and
each class; b) monitoring their work e.g. are they completing their homework in
all their subjects; c) knowing their family. In many ways this may simply be
reinstating a function that teachers in the UK too used to make a point of doing,
but now have “forgotten”: being a “home room” teacher. Apparently in China,
secondary school classes are 50 (not 30) BUT they have strongly in place one
teacher keeping an eye on all of each pupil’s work independently of specialist
subject teachers. This issue seems to be about a feeling of community, of
entrainment, of being noticed, of support when needed.
135
angry”, or that we are deeply upset unless we say “Hey, these are tears, I need
help here”. Babies would probably live only a few days in such circumstances,
but adults too are not entirely free, not just from a wish but from the need to be
noticed without asking for it.
Perhaps it is not exactly being known, or noticed, or monitored, but more being
recognised. This is one view of a doctor’s (or a shaman’s) role: not to cure, but
to recognise the disease, the person and the situation they are in, even if no
worthwhile intervention can be made. For all modern medicine’s emphasis on
cure, we are still all fated to die. A far older, yet still entirely contemporary, role
for doctors is to recognise and certify this (Berger, 1968/1997). This is really
the same point as is made in quite other contexts about how the most important
feature of personal relationships is not validation, praise etc. so much as being
known as we really are (Ben-Shahar, 2007).
This function (“monitoring”) seems similar to the principle of “time on task” and
Gibbs’ version of that as a principle of assessment design (Gibbs & Simpson,
2004). Here however it is not about designing the course, but monitoring
student execution of the design so as to detect promptly those who are falling
away. It rings bells with discussion in HE about addressing first year and
retention issues there. It is interesting that the discussion about secondary
schools, though using different language, is also about supporting the transition
from primary school, about requiring pupils to be more self-managing but
catching early those who have difficulty with this and focussing staff support
there. In effect this is about scaffolding, not the learning of the content, but the
increase in self-regulation required: and to progressively withdraw that
scaffolding, but “contingently” i.e. only for those pupils who can now manage.
• It is about community in that the learners talk about whether anyone knows
them, notices them; whether they feel part of it.
• It is not about peers but about relationships with teachers/staff.
• It is not about teaching content e.g. tutoring a learner through some
difficulty of understanding.
• It is not even about managing content or acquisition i.e. about whether the
learner has “got” some concept, or passed some test.
• It is not properly pastoral in the sense of solving their personal problems, or
offering them counselling, although awareness of these things may be part
of it. It is about helping them work round any personal problems so as to
remain productively engaged in learning.
• It is about learning activity “management”: about whether the learner is
engaging in the learning activities. (Attendance is simply the crudest
measure related to this.) Students mostly learn to become good at this
over their time at university, but are often not good at it at first. They
need, and often know they need, some help with this: some scaffolding.
This management or self-regulation issue is what is addressed by Gibbs’
principles. Teacher monitoring is one way it is addressed elsewhere in the
education system, and perhaps should be considered in first year in HE,
although the important aim of equipping learners to be more autonomous
136
and ready for lifelong learning means that this scaffolding should be
progressively withdrawn.
137
A generic and abstract meaning of “community” is the way learning is often,
perhaps always, promoted by interaction with other people around learning; that
is, the social aspects as opposed to the individualistic cognitive aspects of
learning. It’s mysterious as a whole because, as constructivism rightly
emphasises, there is an important sense in which learning is essentially private,
something each learner does internally for themselves, and that no-one else can
directly do for them. On the other hand, it seems clear that teachers have an
enormous effect on learning: children who stay away from school seldom learn
much unless their parents devote themselves to teaching them. So the general
question is, what is it that people do for learners that makes a big difference?
The important ways in which other people can help learning may be categorised
in three ways by: whether the help is intentional or not, whether the provider
has a personal relationship with the learner or not in the specific sense of the
provider adjusting what they do in response to the learner i.e. whether it is
contingent, and by whether it is reciprocal i.e. the interaction has
approximately equal learning benefits for both or not (peer vs. teacher). These
three binary categories in reality have intermediate or mixed instances as well,
but the main point here is to illustrate how extensively other people may be
important to learning even though unintentionally, with no special expertise, or
no special relationship with the learner. The table below shows examples for all
eight of the combinations of these three categories. Additionally, “+” marks a
fourth binary categorisation of whether the learner is proactive, taking the
initiative in organising or arranging for the activity. A fifth binary categorisation,
not systematically marked and developed here but implicitly varying among the
examples, is between help at the basic content level of concepts to be learned,
and help with the management level of deciding on what learning activities to
perform.
138
Learners benefit from others with and without special expertise,
intention, or being personally known
+ indicates an activity initiated by the learner (proactive-ness)
Helper’s Intention Personal relationship
Not personal
expertise to teach (contingent action)
Teacher monitoring,
Lecturing,
Scaffolding of procedural
Intended Writing a textbook,
skills
+ Asking an expert
+ Ask a tutor
Unequal, staff, + Eavesdropping on
benefit not Role model (using a
strangers,
reciprocal teacher as),
Using a celebrity or hero
(+) Imitating or observing
Unintended as a role model,
someone more
+ Studying the career of
knowledgeable whom you
a politician to gain similar
know
success
Wikipedia,
+ Alternating roles e.g.
Anonymised versions of
testing each other, student
student reciprocal
Intended reciprocal critiquing,
critiquing,
The same but imposed by
+ Posting a question to a
staff
forum
The underlying issue here is what is the relationship of the social and the
academic — of Tinto’s (1975) two types of integration thought to be important in
reducing dropout — of personal social relationships and productive learning? A
personal relationship is founded on knowing specific things about the other, and
139
most importantly, the history of the interactions. If you act identically with a
person, regardless of anything they do or say, it cannot be a personal
relationship. This is “contingency”: the dependence of one party’s action on the
other’s previous action(s). This has also been shown to be important in some
teaching: Wood, Wood, & Middleton (1978) showed that optimal tutoring on a
procedural task was “contingent tutoring”, where the tutor’s next intervention
was varied depending on the last action by the learner. However this isn’t the
only (nor the most common) way in which one person can help another’s
learning; and furthermore, their strategy doesn’t depend on prior knowledge of
the learner, but on responding to what they are doing currently.
Much of this runs counter to the intuition which many learners and teachers
have, that the social precedes the academic, and that to get a group or class to
work together, they must first be introduced socially (by “ice breakers” in the
small scale, cheese and wine events for large classes, etc.). This is widely
accepted advice in e-learning e.g. Salmon’s (2000) stage 2. However as the
review by Kreijns, Kirschner & Jochems (2003) reveals (perhaps inadvertently),
while the e-learning field believes “that social interaction is a prerequisite for
collaboration and collaborative learning”, such advice is only an advance relative
to “taking social interaction for granted” i.e. to technologists’ naive surprise that
simply providing the technology (e.g. a discussion board) is not sufficient to
induce academically productive peer discussion. It is better than doing nothing,
but not only is there no evidence that it is optimal, but it is not even as
advanced as best non-technological practice. For example a long established,
although not widespread, practice is the reading party, where a group of
learners and staff spend several days together engaged in joint academic tasks.
These are frequently mentioned as their best learning experience by students
who have participated in one, and also produce strong group bonding.
It seems likely, then, that a more careful consideration of the literatures relevant
to learning and community could yield better suggestions about supporting
academically productive peer interaction. Certainly Baxter (2007) obtained
impressive learning gains based on online “virtual” student groups where there
was no provision for meeting face to face nor for prior small group social
140
interaction, but had repeated joint group projects which led to considerable and
useful peer interaction.
“COMMUNITY” AGAIN
Communities, therefore, matter to learning in several separate ways.
• Learning is better promoted (more learning outcomes are realised) if pre-
existing communities support it: families, cultural attitudes, governments.
• Other people help learners in many ways, not all personal, not all
intentional. A learner without access to other people would be
handicapped, although by no means entirely prevented from learning.
Thus there are some other positive community effects on learning, even
without supportive attitudes.
• Groups (“communities”) specially formed for learning are also important,
although not essential. Learning in a group (others doing the same course)
inside an organisation like a university, increases the availability of
resources including social resources, that promote your personal learning.
• Knowledge itself is socially distributed, and not individually and
independently grounded. This social network could be called a community,
although of a different kind. If we consider a topic as simple as what does
something weigh, then what we want to mean is whatever the government
standard of weight is; which in turn depends on international standards,
and in turn these are under review by experts (who are currently seeking to
replace the standard kilogram lump of metal by another way of defining the
standard). This paper itself also illustrates how meaning is a series of
pointers to other meanings, not something anyone “owns” or “has”. When
we teach something, even if merely by inducing rote learning of technical
terms, we are connecting our learners better to a community of users of
the technical terms. Modern practices of creating special online forums
around a topic illustrate that communities of practitioners benefit from
exercising this social aspect of distributed knowledge. These are much
more flexible than traditional communities, and much closer to instantiating
Illich’s vision.
141
• But possibly the most powerful effects of community on learning are not at
this “object level” of what is meant or known; but at the “meta level” or
“management level” of how learning activities are regulated. Learning in a
group, to a common timescale, is widely felt to be important, even
necessary. It is notable that the Open University, in other respects offering
the most freedom to the learner to choose the time and place of the
learning work they do, nevertheless imposes deadlines and timescales that
keep sometimes gigantic cohorts of students in synchrony.
CONCLUSION
What should a practical teacher or course designer take from this? What is not
a good idea is to take “learning community” as new knowledgeable-sounding
jargon for “a cohort of students”, plus a cosy view of them as “a community”.
This is neither warranted nor likely to improve learning. Rather than rely on
one’s own feelings of benevolence as a guide to what community means for
learning, it seems best to recognise that “community” is a phrase that fits
numerous distinct issues in learning. They have been researched separately and
should probably be regarded as separate phenomena or issues. This is not to
say that the different issues don’t interact, and in practice may have synergistic
effects. On the contrary, really successful learning designs typically will succeed
in addressing all these issues well in an integrated way that makes them look
apparently part of each other. However it does mean that acting to achieve one
issue does not mean you are bound, or even likely, to achieve all. They are not
interchangeable. Less inspired learning designs act on some important issues
yet fail to cover them all. This applies also to Tinto’s notion of “integration”:
both “community” and “integration” allude to a feeling of belonging, and to a
relationship between social and academic aspects; but both in fact have many
different, and in some cases opposing, interpretations.
Learning is social, but not only in the ways we might prefer, or that our
favourite theory notices. Three independent dimensions were proposed as a
way of mapping out the diverse ways in which other people may assist learning:
whether the help is intentional, whether it is contingent (modified by
personalised reaction to the learner), whether it is reciprocal (based on a
relationship as peers, not as expert-novice). Learning may be aided by other
people with and without each of these: in all eight combinations, all of which
relate to real communities in the everyday, social sense in some way. However
it may be that underlying this three dimensional scheme is a profound contrast
between whether what is being learned is procedural or propositional. Both may
be assisted by community, but the social organisation of that help is different. If
you are learning a procedure (e.g. cooking a recipe, writing a computer
program) then a single failure usually causes the failure of the whole process.
Situated learning, communities of practice, apprenticeship, and scaffolding are
all organised around doing: around performing, learning, and reproducing
procedures. In contrast if you are trying to understand a concept, you are
exploring the ways it links to other things (that is one definition of deep
learning), but no one link is vital. Discussion is productive for testing and
creating such links, but agreement is not necessary, nor reproduction of others’
beliefs about it. For this, collegiate interaction is what is required and mutually
beneficial, not group work producing a joint product.
142
The idea and practice I called “teacher monitoring” raises another point: that the
aspects of community that have a positive effect on learning may not be about
being accepting, or respecting privacy and individual choice. Just as real
communities are by no means uniformly benign, and perhaps could never be if
they are to maintain cohesion and discipline, so learning communities are not
entertainment services, whose only purpose is to give pleasure, comfort and a
feeling of consumer control. The ways in which learners are aided by other
people are extremely diverse, and uncritical acceptance and lack of challenge
are not always best for learning.
“If you travel with us you will have to learn things you do not want to learn in
ways you do not want to learn”.
[from a letter by Doris Lessing, replying to a reader who had been seriously
disturbed by reading one of her novels. Quoted in Alan Yentob’s “Imagine” TV
programme on Doris Lessing, broadcast Tues 27 May 2008, 10:35pm on BBC1]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to Palitha Edirisingha, Isobel Falconer, David King, George Roberts,
and Denise Whitelock, with whom I discussed versions of this paper and so
improved my ideas about it.
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144
SOCIAL NETWORKING AND AUTHENTIC ENGAGEMENT: STUDENTS
AS “PRODUSERS”
ABSTRACT
Ambivalence seems to typify the attitude of many academics towards the use of
read/write technologies (also known as Web 2.0): they might work, but then
they might not. And there would be new skills to master, so passing by on the
other side is often the action of choice. This research study turns that approach
upside down. It is a part of a larger undertaking, Using Ambient Social Media:
free-to use software as viable VLEs in syllabus design and assessment, a
Learning & Teaching Innovation Project funded by the University. Even though
the original title of the research used the term VLE, it seems now that PLE might
be a better term, as “VLE” implies institutional learning environments. while
“PLE” suggests a more informal produsage environment. Two cohorts of
students of digital photography were privileged to participate in one lecturer’s
pursuit of excellence, as “produsers” (Bruns, 2007) in the lulu.com environment.
In a quirk of course design, it might also be said that produsage is the guiding
principle for the engagement of students in articulating the assessment criteria;
transferring these criteria to a rubric; and evaluating artefacts-in-production and
providing peer feedback to each other.
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INTRODUCTION
This paper describes the way in which one lecturer engaged her students in a
learning experience that we believe fits the profile of produsage (Bruns, 2006).
In the context of a higher education digital photography degree, using the
ubiquitous read/write technologies, and mapped onto the characteristics of
produsage, distributed learning is offered as the theoretical framework for the
teaching and learning activity. These characteristics then frame the case for
produsage in lulu.com – the print-on-demand social networking site and the
virtual learning environment that the students used in their learning journey.
CONTEXT
In December 2006, a team drawn from the Arts, Media and English Department
(AME) of London South Bank University’s (LSBU) Faculty of Arts and Human
Sciences successfully bid for funding through the University’s Learning &
Teaching Project Innovation Scheme. The team said:
“In our view social media will play a great part in future patterns of
professional and educational communication. Through our ‘lead-edge’
media programme we have an opportunity to both study students’ current
use and design forms of assessment which ‘mesh’ with social media and
hence provide an important model for HE in general.”
A year later, the team was awarded a second tranche of funding from the
Innovation Project Scheme to “build on the knowledge base gained with the
research project: Using Ambient Social Media: free-to use software as viable
VLEs in syllabus design and assessment … and [to] further the research with a
renewed focus and methodological approach.” The second project was called
“From coursework to social network: exploring social network sites as art and
media learning environments”. This paper focuses on the aspect of students as
produsers (Bruns, 2008c) in a read/write environment during the first round of
funding.
Self-publishing initiatives that rely on the availability of free social software have
exploded onto the radar of, amongst others, higher education (HE) institutions.
Using these print-on-demand (POD) platforms, authors are able to manage the
production and distribution of their work on an unprecedented scale. This paper
seeks to explore the relevance of the POD phenomenon in HE by addressing the
following research question: “Do digital photography students engaging with
print-on-demand social networking technology act as authentic produsers?”
In the first semester of the 2007-08 academic year, two units entitled
“Photographic Cultures” (at level two) and Brief-Led Project (at level three)–
were embedded in lulu.com, an online POD platform. This piece of research
explored the use of a single site as a creative produsage environment as well as
the vehicle for demonstrating the accomplishment of learning outcomes. A
second facet of the research was the engagement of students in the
development of the criteria that were used to ascertain the achievement of
outcomes and in the application of those criteria in grading their peers’ work.
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environment. The case for the use of the read/write web (Richardson, 2006) in
higher education has been ably stated, a position acknowledged in the
Innovation Project that forms the backdrop for this study. While Weller (2008)
emphasises that the read/write approach takes into account both technological
and social facets, there is also the need to explore the emerging use of
technology in the light of intellectual property issues (Dautlich & Eziefula, 2007).
We recommend Anderson’s article (2007) for anyone wishing to investigate the
potential in greater depth. The paper traces the emergence of the phenomenon
now known as Web 2.0 or, as we prefer, read/write technologies and their
application in the higher education environment; it also offers a comprehensive
bibliography for further reading.
In our experience, many academics are aware of the read/write web, of its
current use, and even of the potential that it embodies to improve the student
learning experience. It seems to us that it is the perception of a need to master
new skills and, possibly, pedagogies that it the greatest barrier to their
implementation. This study is evidence of how engagement as produsers
provided students with the opportunity to engage in an environment relevant to
their field of study. These digital photography students benefited from being
produsers (Bruns, 2007) in the lulu.com environment.
WHAT IS A PRODUSER?
Bruns (2008a) defines a produser as someone who engages in “user-led content
production (produsage)”. While he tends to link the concept with the
read/write web, Bruns does not confine produsage to this technological genre.
Figure 1 (Bruns, 2008b) depicts the produsage process:
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using the site, the individual produses a personalised (in this instance) view.
We might call this many-to-one produsage, as it is the buying patterns of many
that create the view presented to one. This form of produsage is clearly
mediated by technology.
At the heart of the concept, however, is a user who engages with content to
produse an output. While the social nature of the read/write environment is
more or less implicit in the produsage context, it is the change in focus from the
industrial production model to a service orientation that hallmarks the concept.
Bruns (2006) identifies four key characteristics of produsage:
users produse new content which is made available to others;
in the creative process, they collaborate with other produsers;
products are always subject to revision; and
this “revisioning” process necessitates new traditions of copyrighting.
PEDAGOGICAL FRAMEWORK
Distributed learning is an often neglected theoretical framework within which to
explore the complex nature of media art education. This approach forges a link
between the traditional styles of teaching and learning in the field and the
innovative. It also accommodates the shift from students’ creating knowledge in
such ‘distributed’ locations as media labs, studios and workshops, on the one
hand, and the way that they use new software and virtual learning environments
(Logan et al, 2007) to address academic requirements and creative enterprise,
on the other. It encapsulates the environment conducive to learning implicit in
the produsage model.
Salmon’s e-tivity model (2002) offered a design for learning interventions. The
learning and teaching activity in each unit was carefully designed in such a way
that the face-to-face activities of the students each week in class alternated with
online e-tivities that provided a link between the topic of the earlier face-to-face
session, and that of the next one. For instance, in week two, the students spent
part of their class time in the University’s library researching the photobook
collection.
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An outcome of that research was to identify a particular volume that they wished
to explore further. The e-tivity for the week that followed required that they
continued their research in the online environment, looking for such information
about their chosen photobook as the “ISBN, publisher’s site and critical reviews”.
Using lulu.com’s blogging tool, they posted the information they had discovered
for peer comment. The knowledge, understanding and skills acquired in this
activity fed into the next week’s face-to-face class.
A particular focus in the design of these units (with particular reference to the
second that we believe articulates well with the produsage model) was the way
that students engaged with the assessment process in a particularly meaningful
way. We believe that the pedagogical framework is an appropriate place to
explain this process, as it builds on the “syllabus design and assessment” of the
earlier funding, and engages students with pedagogical processes.
In this round of the research, the teacher and students engaged in a carefully
orchestrated activity to design assessment criteria that addressed the learning
outcomes of the individual units. Rubric Studio, freely available at
facultycentral.com, was used to design “irubrics”, marking grids that captured
the assessment criteria, as well as negotiated descriptions of levels of
achievement. These rubrics were used collaboratively for marking by both
students (for peer assessment) and lecturers (for tutor assessment).
Early in the course of the unit, and once the students had engaged with
photobooks in both the physical and online environments, the students and
lecturer engaged in the process of developing criteria for assessing work. (It
should be noted that in the University’s validation procedures, learning outcomes
are stated, as are assessment methods. Assessment criteria, however, are at
the discretion of the lecturer. This situation created the opportunity to engage
the students in the process.)
After introducing learners to rubrics in class, they were asked to consider the
learning outcomes and develop assessment criteria in response to such
questions as: “What qualities would you look for in deciding how to mark a
photobook?” With a list of questions, the class broke into self-selected small
groups with the following tasks:
• identify 6 assessment criteria that measure the learning outcomes
• rank the criteria selected in order of importance, from most important to
least important
• present the top two criteria to the class.
As each group presented their top criteria, they were listed on the whiteboard
and the class then decided which four criteria of those identified were the most
relevant to the outcomes of the project. The class then decided descriptors of
'poor,' 'fair,' 'good' and 'excellent' performance for each criterion. The
collaboratively decided criteria were listed down the left side of the rubric matrix
and the descriptors were entered under the scores 0-5 which formed the column
headings. In this process, the produsage principle can be clearly traced.
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(emphasis in original) and we would agree. It is also a student-centred
approach. And this is where we find the touch of intrigue: the excellent results
of the students were considered by the system to be out of line with the norm.
We believe that there is a case for future research into the lip service paid to
criterion referenced assessment in an HE environment that clearly still believes
in grading on a curve.
We will briefly explore each of these attributes in the light of the lulu.com
experience. Figure 2 depicts the way that we see the produsage principle at
work in these students’ activity.
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anything that challenges the norm and gets you thinking in different ways is a
good thing. This module is not presented to us in a traditional, stuffy, listen and
takes notes old school university style. We are studying a new art form and our
lecture methods should reflect the move away from tradition.”
CONCLUSION
“Do digital photography students engaging with print-on-demand social
networking technology act as authentic produsers?” We believe that we have
demonstrated that the students who were the participants in this research study
were produsers, in the way that Bruns describes the produsage process. While
151
the students were not apparently explicitly aware of the potential for a revision
stage or stages, the nature of their engagement with the process lends implicit
acceptance of the concept.
References
Anderson, P. (2007). What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for
Education. Available from
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/ tsw0701b.pdf Accessed
on 20 October 2008.
Biggs, J. (1999). What the student does: Teaching for enhanced learning.
Higher Education Research & Development. 18(1). 57-75.
Brin, S. & Page, L. (1998). The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual
Web Search Engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems. 30(1-7). 107-117.
Bruns, A. (2006). Teaching the Produsers: Preparing Students for User-Led
Content Production. Paper presented at ATOM 2006 Conference, Brisbane,
Australia, 8 October 2006.
Bruns, A. (2007). Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led
Age. Paper presented at ICE 3 (Ideas, Cyberspace, Education) Conference.
Ross Priory, Loch Lomond, Scotland, 21-23 March 2007.
Bruns, A. (2008a, October). 'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser.
The Mojtaba Saminejad Lecture presented at Temple University, Philadelphia.
Available from http://snurb.info/index.php?q=node/286. Accessed on 16
October 2008.
Bruns, A. (2008b). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From
Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. (2008c). From Production to Produsage: Research into User-Led
Content Creation. Available from http://produsage.org/. Accessed on 2
October 2008.
Dautlich, M. & Eziefula, N. (2007). Web 2.0: new internet, new etiquette . . .
new law? Available from http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/
article2725636.ece. Accessed on 20 October 2008.
Land, R. (2007). Overcoming barriers to learning: threshold concepts and
troublesome knowledge. Available from
http://www.uwic.ac.uk/ltsu/documents/land_lecture.doc. Accessed on 20
October 2008.
Logan, C; Allen, S; Kurien, A. & Flint, D. (2007). Distributed e-learning in Art,
Design, Media: an investigation into current practice. York: Art Design Media
Subject Centre – Higher Education Academy.
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools
for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Salmon, G. (2002). e-tivities. London: Kogan Page.
Weller, M. (2008). The implications of Web 2.0. Available from
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/?q=node/73. Accessed on 20 October 2008.
152
TECHNOLOGY, TRANSPARENCY AND COMMUNICATION IN
INSTITUTIONS: SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN THE SPLICE PROJECT
Introduction
SPLICE is a JISC-funded project focussed on the establishment and role of
technological habits of teachers, learners and administrators in lifelong learning.
Within this broad focus, the relationship between the use of social software and
increased professional transparency of teachers within the institution has come
under scrutiny. This has revealed some organisational benefits to educational
institutions of the use of social software which add a new dimension to the
ongoing discussions around the role of social software in education, particularly
those concerning the Personal Learning Environment (Johnson and Liber, 2008).
Here we are focused on identifying social mechanisms which might explain these
organisational phenomena: an objective which we argue is not only important to
the project, but to the broader strategic approach to social software within
Universities.
SPLICE has generated a range of outcomes which reflect the complexities of the
topic of ‘technological habit’. However, the task of translating these outcomes
into meaningful evaluation and knowledge which is valuable to the sector at
large presents some significant methodological challenges. To address these
challenges, SPLICE as a whole has adopted an approach which draws on the
techniques of Realistic Evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 2004). By using Realistic
Evaluation, the focus is to ensure that knowledge outcomes from the project are
useful to people outside the project, so that (for example) if an institutional
manager asks “if I do what’s been done in SPLICE in my institution, what will
happen?” an answer which accurately predicts events (good and bad) can be
given. Realistic Evaluation helps because it is a multiple theory-driven process
for identifying possible social mechanisms. In doing this, it is distinct from
traditional single-theory approaches (for example the traditional ‘before’ and
‘after’ case-study), or phenomenological no-theory approaches (e.g. Glaser and
Strauss’s ‘Grounded theory’ (1962)) Realistic Evaluation prioritises the process
of theory construction and testing as an essential part of construing meaning
from project outcomes. As such it is closely allied to multimethodological
techniques in the social sciences (Mingers, 2008).
Realistic Evaluation
Central to the Realistic Evaluation approach is the idea that there are
discoverable mechanisms responsible for social phenomena, and that better
knowledge of these mechanisms can give greater control to practitioners,
whether teachers, administrators or learners. In asserting the role of
mechanisms in the social world, Realistic Evaluation is rooted in the philosophy
153
of Critical Realism (Bhaskar, 1977; Archer 1982). Pawson and Tilley argue that
the job of evaluation is to uncover those mechanisms through a process which
they (following Bhaskar) call Retroduction. In essence, Retroduction involves
describing the Context (C) within which a possible Mechanism (M) might be
responsible for producing a particular Outcome (O). The relationship between
Context, Mechanism and Outcome can be shown as in the diagram below:
Context Mechanism
Outcome
Figure 1: Context, Mechanism and Outome in Realistic Evaluation
In line with the Critical Realist position, Pawson and Tilley argue that whilst the
experience of a project to any particular observer (or stakeholder) might be
different (or relative to the observer), those experiences are not that different.
In other words, they may be the product of a common mechanism working
within each individual context. Thus in encouraging individual participants to
articulate the mechanisms that they feel to be responsible for what they
experience, it may be possible to consider overarching explanatory frameworks
which describe mechanisms which are common to each. Such overarching
mechanisms can then be considered for their explanatory and predictive power
with regard to each individual outcome.
• Technical developers
• project managers
• Teachers
• Accounting managers
• Institutional administrators
• Funding body programme managers
• Creative Technology practitioners
• Learners
The stakeholders within SPLICE have had different experiences of it. Some
learners had highly beneficial experiences, whilst others continued to feel
uncomfortable with social software and didn’t engage much. Institutional
administrators varied in their experiences of the project, from simply managing
the project money, to identifying key synergies between project outcomes and
institutional objectives. Individual teachers varied in their experiences, from
overcoming reticence to engage in new technologies, to transforming their
154
teaching practices. Software developers experienced a capacity-raising effort,
although some users of the software didn’t enjoy the fruits of their endeavour.
The involvement of Creative Technology practitioners in the project was
designed to enrich the learners’ social network with real practitioners. These
practitioners, like the learners, varied in their experience of the project, from
ignoring it to experiencing significant transformation of their technological
practices.
Each of these individual stories represents an individual outcome, and from the
Realistic Evaluation perspective, mechanisms may be suggested for each of
these outcomes, as can the contexts within which the mechanisms operate. It
was not unusual to find individuals experiencing very different outcomes from
the project (sometimes conflicting with each other). Treating each observed
outcome as being the product of a mechanism allows such complex dimensions
to be examined.
155
communication is deemed more likely and thus the communication becomes
self-sustaining (or in Luhmann’s terminology, borrowed from Maturana and
Varela (1980), autopoietic). The environment of an institution contributes to the
success of a communication by attenuating these possibilities – for example,
with codes of practice, professional discourse, processes and procedures – more
broadly, perhaps, what we might conceive of as institutional ‘culture’.
156
Both these positive and negative outcomes are important to the project, for
within the realistic evaluation approach, they are regarded as outward
manifestations of complex social and personal mechanisms. On the positive side,
concrete evidence was gained in SPLICE concerning the organizational benefits
of personal transparency on the institution together with benefits to learners
which followed from this. At the same time, a lot of evidence was gained
concerning the struggle individuals experienced in engaging with social software
– often not through any identifiable deficiency of skill, but rather a mistrust of
the transparency that was entailed through using it.
Prior to the project, like any institution, the professional concerns of teachers in
Harlech revolved around individual learners, the curriculum, timetabling, etc.
SPLICE added a new component into these concerns, and one which caused a
critical reflection on teaching practice, curriculum and pedagogy. Moreover, staff
within the college started to engage in external discussions with the broader e-
learning community. Because the focus of the project was on social software and
transparent practice, this further stimulated dialogue and engagement. As some
learners experienced benefit (and others struggled) from the social software
environment, so staff reflected on their experiences. Thus, established patterns
of communication within the college were disrupted by the project and gradually
Coleg Harlech moved towards a position where teachers (particularly) were
engaging in richer communication about their practices with a broader range of
stakeholders. One concrete benefit of this process was the combination of the
157
initially separate Visual arts and Multimedia programmes into a single ‘core’
module focusing on technology and creativity.
As previously suggested, not all stakeholders had their capacity raised in this
way, but all were affected by the project in some way. Nevertheless, the
increase in successful communication across the institution is perhaps a useful
index of the efficacy of the impact of personal transparency across the
organization. This suggests that Luhmann’s assertion that institutions serve to
maximize the possibility of successful communication can be compared
favourably to the overall increase in successful communication produced through
personal transparency and may therefore present a way of measuring the value
of a particular intervention. Thus we are on the point of suggesting a possible
mechanism: that transparency can increase the probability of successful
communication and that this can benefit institutional function. Within the
Realistic Evaluation methodology, this is one of many possible mechanisms
which must be considered for their explanatory power.
158
These three ‘levers for change’ were applied at different stages of the project,
and each one produced some measurable transformation in practice. For
example, a number of events were conducted early in the project to talk about
social software. This was a ‘rational argument’ and as a result of it, more people
engaged with the SPLICE network, and started to sign-up for some of the social
software services discussed (notably Twitter).
Behind these observed effects of the different interventions we made lie further
mechanisms relating to the ‘person’ which are beyond the scope of this paper.
Whilst the mechanisms which link transparent practice with increased
communication are borne out by the Harlech experience, the causes for people
changing their practices in response to particular interventions are not dealt
with. However, to answer the institutional manager’s question realistically,
identifying a mechanism for the benefits of transparency is only any good if they
are also informed about mechanisms for changing practice and overcoming the
barriers of engaging with transparency.
Conclusion
Through the example of Coleg Harlech, we have argued that transformation of
personal technological habit to increase transparency of professional and
personal practice is possible. We have asserted that increasing transparency
through social software has direct benefits on the organization of institutions,
which in turn can enrich learner experiences. We have further asserted that it is
possible to transform technological habit through recognizing ‘levers for change’
and applying them appropriately.
159
have also produced a set of distinctions which try to account for the variety of
experiences in SPLICE through using Luhmann’s communication theory. If they
are good distinctions, then seeing the system through their lens will produce
results which are to the benefit of institutions and learners; if this doesn’t
happen, then new distinctions need to be examined. However, at this stage, we
can point to an instance of practice in Coleg Harlech were Luhmann’s distinctions
seem to ‘fit’, where increase in personal transparency has had a real impact on
communication structures within the institution, and where these changes have
brought about genuinely beneficial experiences for teachers and learners.
Behind all this lie the real challenges of institutional life and the continual
struggle to maintain an environment for effective teaching and learning practice.
E-learning coordinators, IT managers and Vice-chancellors struggle to steer their
institutions in a fast-changing world, and the many opportunities for intervention
must be carefully considered. We have argued in this paper that useful
evaluation empowers people with the knowledge of what is likely to happen,
borne out of previous experience. If that knowledge is accurate and events
(good and bad) pass as expected, then the control of those who have the power
to steer events is increased.
References
Archer, M.S. (1995) Realist Social Theory: the Morphogenetic Approach CUP
Bhaskar, R (1975) A Realist Theory of Science Sage
Bhaskar, R (1979) A Possibility of Naturalism Sage
Dalsgaard, Social (2008) Networking Sites: Transparency in Online Education
http://eunis.dk/papers/p41.pdf
Glaser BG, Strauss A (1967) Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for
Qualitative Research. Sociology Press
Johnson, M; Liber, 0 (2008) The Personal Learning Environment and the Human
Condition: from Theory to Teaching Practice Interactive Learning
Environments, vol 15, no. 1
Luhmann, N (1995) Social Systems Stanford University Press
Mingers, J (2005) Realising Systems Theory
Maturana, H; Varela, F (1980) Autopoiesis and Cognition: the realization of the
living Boston studies in the philosophy of science; vol.42
Pawson, R; Tilley, N (2004) Realistic Evaluation
Qvortrup, L (2005) Society’s Education System – An introduction to Niklas
Luhmann’s pedagogy theory Seminar.net – International Journal of media,
technology and lifelong learning – Issue 1, 2005
Tilley, N. (1993), 'Understanding Car Parks, Crime and CCTV: Evaluation Lessons
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HMSO
160
WELCOME TO (Y)OUR SECOND LIFE:
INTRODUCTION
Learning and teaching in virtual 3D worlds is still a relatively new field to be
explored and as such is an exciting area to be involved in. Many consider 3D
worlds to be playful spaces that are “…adaptable, creative, sociable and
collaborative…”. It has also, however, been described as an “uncanny space”
that may function as “a learning environment which nurtures a creative sense of
dissonance, troublesomeness and ‘strangeness’ in both learners and teachers”.
(Bayne, 2008).
To set the context, the paper will provide a brief overview of Second Life (SL)
and discuss issues and challenges of successful transition support in general and
within Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) in particular.
The main part of our paper will focus on two new projects:
Research has shown that students who need advice and support most will not
actively seek help (Thomas 2002, 2005, Whittaker, 2008, Yorke & Longden
2004). So can a tool like Second Life reach out to those students who hesitate
or abstain from asking for help by allowing them to retain their anonymity? On
the one hand, it appears to be an ideal way of ensuring that all students have
access to an alternative form of support. On the other hand, recent studies
indicate that the uptake of so-called Web 2.0 tools and emerging technologies
161
has not been as successful and as widespread as the academic community would
have hoped (Kennedy et al, 2007).
Against this background, we aim to discuss what lessons we can learn from
using emerging technologies, social networking in general and SL in particular.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using SL for student support and
mentoring? How can we encourage students to become involved in and use a
virtual campus? Are there certain groups of students who are less likely to
engage with such a medium than others? If yes, what can we do about that?
Some of the outcomes of the workshop discussion will inform the final discussion
of the paper.
Second Life is a rich multi media space. It supports images and video, and, like
Web 2.0, it has a range of tools that support communication such as text chat,
audio chat, ability to send email, and functionality that allows data to flow both
in and out of world. These services use many of the standard Web 2.0 tools that
are already in existence.
But how can we use this kind of environment to support learning? It is in the
processes that SL supports that the potential lays. Wikipedia defines SL such:
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life. Accessed 20/01/09
162
For example, we are currently developing a simulation on the GCU SL Islands to
demonstrate complex algorithms that are used in artificial intelligence design.
The algorithms are used to plot paths between waypoints to allow a robot to
move from point to point. This is a difficult abstract theory for undergraduates
to grasp. The development of this simulation is being undertaken by two MSc
Computing students as part of their coursework. Not only are the two students
working on this project collaboratively, they are building it as a learning tool for
other students, using their own knowledge of the difficulties of understanding
this process to inform the design.
Other universities around the UK are using Second Life in English, Philosophy,
Psychology, and the Arts. It is used for science simulations, discussions, rapid
development of ideas, for instance in architecture or, product design. Graphic
design and multimedia students are learning to use SL as one of the many tools
of their trade. Journalism is another field in which the use of SL is very popular,
with organisations such as Reuters playing a prominent role. Moreover, students
can learn business and management skills, while marketing skills can be
practised by trading in-world products with little risk.
For the particular strand of this paper – mentoring and transition support – it is
the feeling of ‘being there’ combined with social and personal interaction within a
supportive community that are of greatest importance.
This evening class has evolved and is now for the largest part conducted by the
first group of participants, assisting and guiding new arrivals, if the need arises.
The classes are usually attended by a mix of students, staff and others including
participants from the local council, business, residents, and even 'virtual'
Glaswegians. A genuine feel of community has developed with all helping each
other, while traditional borders between students and staff gradually disappear
and, last, but not least, people enjoy discovering the more outlandish elements
the SL environment has to offer (Trinder, Francino & Littlejohn, 2008).
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participation agenda, and links with employers. One of the aims is to encourage
the participation of non-traditional learner groups in the GCU university
experience, both real and virtual, as part of GCU’s Widening Participation and
Lifelong Learning strategy.
The increasing diversity of the student population and the mass nature of higher
education is a critical issue in terms of transition support. Large student cohorts
require creative thinking in terms of support processes and the curriculum and
the more effective use of technology. In terms of transition support, lack of
preparation and wrong choice of course (Ozga & Sukhandan, 1998, Yorke &
Longden, 2007) can hinder successful integration (Tinto, 1987) as can lack of
interaction (social and academic) with other students and academic staff
(Krause, 2001). Informal learning networks and peer-support structures to
support academic and social transition the from the pre-entry stage and
throughout the first year have been highlighted as essential in recent research
and development work on transition and progression (Creanor et al, 2006;
Harvey, et al, 2006; Whittaker, 2007).
GCU’s use of SL aims to encourage prospective and new students to explore the
GCU learning environment, such as the Saltire Centre and a range of teaching
and learning activities prior to entry as well as engaging in social activities both
in the real and virtual environment. It will also enable students to meet other
new students prior to arrival as well as mentors and programme staff and to
encourage informal peer networking throughout the first year and beyond.
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The exploration of 3D virtual worlds as a means of supporting students to
develop the confidence and skills to prepare for, and succeed at, university
forms part of a longitudinal induction process which will inform broader HE
sector research and development in the area of transition. GCU’s ‘CU There’ and
other SL projects at GCU will enhance the understanding of HE and college
sectors and will explore the ways in which new technologies (with which
students may be comfortable, but which may be unfamiliar to college and
university staff) can be used to develop the informal learning networks (Creanor
et al, 2006, Trinder et al 2008). The models that will be developed will be
transferable and adaptable across the HE sector, for different learner groups.
Pre-entry Support
Mentors assist project staff with Pre-UCAS and Pre-Exit sessions across 19
partner colleges. Mentors can provide powerful role models and a key source of
information for students considering university. College students are given an
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overview of transition issues and the differences they may experience between
college and university. They are also given information on the support available
to them. Students hear first hand from a mentor who has already made the
transition – wherever possible this is a former student of the college. The
session is supported by information packs and signposting to relevant websites
including the Mentors web pages (www.gcal.ac.uk/mentoring/web).
Challenges
The process of registration and creating an avatar, coupled with the need to
spend time familiarising yourself with the SL software and environment, requires
a significant commitment from participants. This may be a hurdle that some are
unwilling or unable to cross, particularly where other forms of ‘distance’
information and guidance such as telephone, e-mail or websites are already
available and relatively quick and simple to access.
However, initial reactions from both students and mentors are mainly positive:
Very informative. Easy going, fun and friendly. Things were made a lot clearer
for me. Really liked listening to (the mentor’s) personal stories relating to uni.
It was good to hear from an actual student who could tell us what it will ‘really’
be like.
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Initially, I was concerned utilising [SL] because it was an area that I had no
knowledge about. I was worried that I would not be able to understand [it] and
therefore I would not be able to work through the sessions well. New
technology is something that I do not regularly embrace very well, however [SL]
was fairly straightforward to use […]
The controls and navigation is somewhat demanding at first […]. The concept is
ambitious, innovative and ultimately, attainable. I think without a good
overview of the controls though only technically minded students will be
interested in making use of it.
Project context
The pilot project described below aims to explore the utility of Second Life (SL)
as a mechanism through which to provide student support, and is being co-
ordinated by one of the University’s recently appointed Academic Development
Tutors (ADTs). As part of its widening participation agenda, GCU has appointed
a number of ADTs who work with a range of students, particularly those from
non-traditional learner groups, to support learning and promote development of
academic skills. Learner support takes place within the context of specific
disciplines in this case health and social care, and embraces a developmental as
opposed to remedial approach to learning via individual tuition, whole-class
workshops and online guides.
While a high volume of students make use of the academic development service,
staff acknowledge the challenge of promoting uptake among those who feel
embarrassed or stigmatised; typically the very students who require the most
support. Indeed, it has been well documented in the literature that those
students who are most in need of academic support do not actively seek it
(Thomas, 2002, 2005; Whittaker, 2007; Yorke & Longden, 2004). The
inspiration for this project lay in the creative properties of SL, which allow users
to disguise their identities and construct their own appearances through an
avatar. It was conceived that if students could access academic support through
these disguised identities, social barriers to accessing support could be
overcome.
Project description
The project has two phases: one which aims to provide one to one support
(Phase 1) and another which aims to provide group support (Phase 2). At the
time of writing, the construction of a learning and teaching area within SL is
underway. The ADT has created an avatar and has familiarised herself with
navigation, communication and other ‘in world’ activities. Phase 1 will involve
the provision of a weekly drop-in in which students will be able to access advice
from the ADT’s avatar in a purpose built entry-restricted space, which will be
‘invisible’ to others. To protect anonymity, communication will take place via
private messaging. Phase 2 will involve the provision of a series of scheduled
academic skills workshops in a purpose built space. Workshops will be delivered
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on a fortnightly basis and will cover topics such as critical thinking, academic
writing, study skills, and exam preparation. The workshops will be delivered in
real time by the ADT’s avatar using sound and textures (e. g. notice boards),
and the timing of workshops will be carefully planned in order to reach as many
students as possible.
Evaluation
While a qualitative data collection method would be most appropriate to gain an
insight into students’ experiences of engaging with the project, the significance
of preserving anonymity hinders such an approach. Evaluation will therefore
take place in-world with the use of a brief questionnaire containing open and
closed questions, designed to address issues such as the following:
Early experiences
It is beyond the scope of this paper to provide a detailed account of the ADT’s
initial experiences of familiarising herself with SL and so only a brief summary,
capturing the key features of this process, is presented below.
Attitudinal changes
Interestingly, the ADT noticed some attitudinal changes during the first few
weeks of engaging with SL. Initially, she approached the project with a rather
neutral, perhaps sceptical, perspective on its ability to engage those who may
not be considered “technology wizards”. With a developing knowledge of SL,
however, her enthusiasm for the software developed as she mastered new skills
and gained a sense of curiosity in relation to exploring new SL islands. The ADT
has also been quite surprised to find herself growing an attachment to and
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becoming quite invested in her avatar, an experience, which is no doubt unique
and raises interesting avenues for identity related research within virtual worlds.
Limitations
Despite these positive experiences, two significant drawbacks were encountered
and should be noted. Firstly, the ADT’s PC, despite having a reasonably up-to-
date specification, did not fully support the SL software, which created
frustration and a need to have additional software installed. Secondly, the ADT
experienced mild abuse in the form of offensive text comments and avatar
stalking while completing one of the SL orientation tutorials. While she did not
find this particularly distressing, the potential for abusive behaviour should be
taken into consideration when using SL in an educational context.
Benefits:
Challenges:
• The group of students that the project aims to target may be those
with the lowest levels of IT literacy. This may cause apprehension
and act as a barrier to their participation.
• An up-to-date PC with reasonably high spec is required to support
the SL software. The group of students that the project aims to
target may not have home access to computers that support SL,
thus requiring them to be on campus to make use of the service.
This access restriction could potentially act as a barrier.
• While the strength of the project lies in the facility for students to
access support anonymously, there may be drawbacks associated
with the loss of face to face interaction, especially where
individualised support is sought in relation to highly sensitive
issues.
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• Future expansion of the project is dependent on staff buy-in but
recent research suggests that this could be problematic; some staff
are enthusiastic about 3D world technology while others may be
deeply sceptical (Trinder, 2008).
• While measures would be taken to police the service, the
opportunity to disguise one’s identity could potentially entice
misuse in the form of, for example, avatar harassment,
unauthorised or dishonest use, and menacing.
FINAL DISCUSSION
The presentation of the two SL-based GCU projects in relation to transition
support, and the use of SL in a HE context has shown that the reaction towards
SL is mainly positive. While some staff and students may still be reluctant to
use SL as a means of communicating with other staff and students at GCU,
those who have engaged with it, are enjoying the possibilities of SL.
Nevertheless, the fact that Web 2.0 technologies are not as popular as
practitioners in universities would have hoped will need to be addressed.
The workshop discussion at the TESEP LICK Conference 2008, however, touched
on two major concerns in relation to SL and other emerging technologies within
higher education: firstly, concern was expressed over the potential reduction of
face-to-face teaching by emerging technologies. Secondly, workshop
participants discussed the potential drawback of identifying too closely with the
avatar. In this case, staff and students could have difficulties distancing
themselves from the SL context, leading to some of them feeling personally
insulted, irritated, or harassed by other avatars. It was agreed that these
concerns should be taken into account when planning the use of SL in learning
and teaching.
The use of SL in higher education in general is in its early stages, and so are the
two projects introduced in this paper. There will have to be further evaluation of
the uptake of SL as well as the effectiveness of SL based pedagogies. Further
reports on experiences of using SL at GCU will not only be discussed in reports,
at conferences and other publications, but also on the GCU SL island, where all
the projects mentioned above take place.
REFERENCES
Bayne, S (2008), “Learning in a strange place: Second Life at the University of
Edinburgh”, seminar presentation abstract, available online at:
http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/professional/iws.html#sbayneN
Benske, K. (2007) ‘Students in Transition: Tracking GOALS Students in
Transition From School and Through the First Year of Higher Education - A
Work in Progress’, published in ‘The times they are a-changin’: researching
transitions in lifelong learning’. Conference Proceedings, Centre for Research
in Lifelong Learning (CRLL), [CD-ROM]
Benske, K. (2006) Students in Transition - Literature Review; West of Scotland
Wider Access Forum [Internet], available online at:
http://www.westforum.org.uk/index.php?
option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=7&Itemid=36
Creanor, L., Trinder, K., Gowan, D. & Howells, C. (2006) LEX. The Learner
Experience of e-learning. Final Project Report, JISC
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Harvey, L., Drew, S. & Smith, M. (2006) The first year experience: a review of
literature for the Higher Education Academy, HEA
Kennedy, G., Dalgarno, B., Gray, K., Judd, T., Waycott, J., Bennett, S., Maton,
K., Krause, K., Bishop, A., Chang, R. & Churchward, A. (2007) The net
generation are not big users of Web 2.0 technologies: Preliminary findings.
In ICT: Providing Choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ascilite
Singapore 2007.
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/kennedy.pdf
Krause, K. (2001) The University Essay Writing Experience: a pathway for
academic integration during transition Higher Education Research and
Development, Vol 20, No. 2, pp. 147-168
Ozga, J. & Sukhandan, L. (1997) Undergraduate non-completion in higher
education in England (research report 97/29) Bristol, HEFCE)
Tinto V (1987) Leaving College, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
Trinder, K., Francino, F., Littlejohn, A. (2008) Poster presentation: GRiID: GCU
research in Internet 3D, ALT-C2008, 8-11 September, Leeds.
Trinder, K., Guiller, J., Margaryan, A., Littlejohn, A., & Nicol, D. (2008) Learning
from Digital Natives: Integrating formal and informal learning. Final project
report. Higher Education Academy, UK. Available at:
http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/ldn/LDNFinalReport.pdf
Trinder, K., (2008) Fearing your Avatar? Exploring the scary journey to the 3rd
Dimension, Proceedings of ReLIVE08 (Researching Learning in Virtual
Environments) International Conference, 20-21 November, OU, Milton
Keynes
Whittaker, R. (2007) Quality Enhancement Themes: The first Year Experience.
Transition to and during the first year, QAA
Yorke, M. & Longden, B. (2007) The First Year Experience in HE in the UK.
Report of Phase1 of a project funded by the HEA, Higher Education Academy
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SECTION THREE
CLOSING REMARKS
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THE OPEN PLENARY DISCUSSION
Nicholas Mayes
The discussion in the Plenary brought together many of the themes that had
emerged during the day’s programme. As Chair of the Plenary, Terry Mayes
reminded the delegates that one of the purposes of the day was to attempt to
influence policy. Terry introduced some key issues that had come into focus
during earlier discussion and the Plenary considered each in turn, attempting to
derive practical messages for policymakers.
The first of these looked at the impact of what Richard Hall had termed “external
literacies”. These refer to skills, knowledge and attitudes that students acquire in
their online activities outside the formal settings of education. Bringing these
into their learning activities within the curriculum can produce a range of effects
that influence their own, their peers’, and even their tutors’ approaches. Richard
gave some examples of students at De Montfort: game design students working
with SMEs beyond the formal curriculum; computer science students working on
scripting and finding technical help in Second Life; a psychology student with
thousands of vlogs on YouTube. In each of these examples students were
exploring their learning in networks that went well beyond the institution’s VLE,
and were exploiting expertise that in many cases went beyond that of their
tutors. Clearly there is a subset of students who are highly digitally literate, and
these learners are highly ‘connected’ in a way that implicitly widens their
learning environment. For these students the notion of flexible learning is taken
for granted, though such flexibility provides a challenge for institutional
procedures built on an assumption that the institution controls the learning
environment so that it can assure quality. Such digital natives also challenge the
conventional relationships between students and their teachers. Some of the
discussion around this topic concerned the expectation of learners that they
need to choose their own social networks. Though these networks might be used
for learning, the students may not be comfortable sharing such networks with
those who will be responsible for assessing the quality of their work.
A counterbalancing view was put by Joseph Maguire who reported on the low
level of digital literacy of many of the students in the course in which he had
attempted to introduce an element of co-creation. However, Steve Draper
reported evidence that a survey of digital awareness amongst students had
revealed a higher level of familiarity with social networking tools for level one
students than for level four, so the level of digital literacy of incoming students is
probably increasing rapidly. Nevertheless, Steve reminded the group that merely
being fluent with one or two social networking tools, like Facebook, does not
necessarily imply digital literacy in the sense that Richard Hall’s examples
implied. Kerr Gardiner, though, put the view that our idea of digital literacy is
changing all the time. For example, it would no longer be regarded as necessary
to write HTML.
The discussion widened to consider how far HEIs are responsible for ensuring
that all students are fully equipped with the skill and knowledge that would allow
them to exploit Web 2.0 possibilities for enhanced learning. The fact is that the
set of required skills and knowledge is changing too fast for a curriculum that
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might be intended to last for four years. A certificate of Web 2.0 competence
gained in year one would seem quaintly out of date by year two. Nevertheless,
the digital divide is real and the more we encourage the idea of co-creation the
more disadvantaged are students who fall on the wrong side of the divide. This
takes us right into the debate about generic skills and the extent to which they
can be embedded in mainstream teaching of disciplines. What attributes should
a graduate in the 21st century have, and how far should HE go in supporting
them?2 Some participants in the discussion saw a deficit model driving this
agenda, and expressed concern about the negative consequences of this.
The Chair introduced the term ‘academic literacy’ into the discussion. This is
intended to widen the concept of digital literacy to include the skills of critical
thinking and enquiry. Not all the discussants were convinced that this term
would convey what was intended. Steve Draper wondered whether social skills
should be regarded as important here. He admits to finding it challenging to
work in a “leaderless herd” and assumes that many undergraduates also find
this difficult. As the discussion about academic literacy continued it became
clearer that there are many components of ‘21st century literacy’ that should be
addressed. Fluency with all aspects of modern technology is a key requirement
for the building of successful performance in every area of modern life,
associated as it should be with social and personal confidence, awareness and
sensitivity to social and political agendas, and the ability to make informed
judgements. Academic literacy refers to a basic flexibility to adapt to rapid
changes and it is perhaps not very well served by the teaching of a standard
discipline-based curriculum.
The discussion moved on to the challenge of equipping staff with the confidence
to move in the direction this symposium was trying to encourage: Christina
Mainka’s workshop had revealed this as a key issue. Martin Oliver suggested
that current strategies had alienated staff by emphasising their “deficiencies”.
Mark Johnson and Kerr Gardiner both contributed to the discussion around this
point, emphasising the need for institutional policies to grasp the importance of
encouraging staff to explore and discover for themselves the pedagogical
possibilities. Geoff Goolnik raised the concept of a “sandpit area” for staff,
though Nicola Cargill-Kipar reminded us that so long as institutional policies offer
more reward for research than for teaching, we will continue to see a low level of
engagement in such approaches. Angela Benzies described how hard it is to
make progress in a single area of teaching – a module, say – when the individual
is embedded in a teaching culture that hardly changes from year to year.
The Plenary then focused on the central topic of the symposium: the co-creation
of knowledge. The Chair suggested that the term raises several questions by its
ambiguity. The co-creation of what and by whom and for what purpose? In her
keynote Betty Collis had emphasised the learning benefits students derived from
the act of creating materials. The discussion centred on the need for this task to
be purposeful and authentic for each learner. One example is to ask students to
produce materials from which others will learn: placing the learner in the role of
teacher is a powerful constructivist device. But will the materials produced really
2
The nature of 21st century graduate attributes is the subject of the latest
Scottish HE enhancement theme, aiming to integrate all previous themes. See
www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk
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be used for teaching others? Indeed, Terry Mayes questioned the pedagogical
rationale for this since delivering materials for learning is not in itself an effective
pedagogy for the recipient, only for the creator. In Joseph Maguire’s example he
had to rethink the intention that video podcasts would be reused by the
following year’s students, although the reason for this had more to do with the
need to assure the quality of the content than to enhance pedagogy. Betty Collis
suggested that having stages of feedback prior to video production would have
helped in this case. Terry’s suggested approach was to capture the process of
creating the materials, and reuse this (e.g. video diaries and records of
discussions) rather than the actual content itself.
The Chair concluded the Plenary by thanking the participants for a successful
day. He particularly thanked the TESEP Project for its sponsorship of the event.
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POSTSCRIPT
Introduction
I was asked to sum up the day, in some way, while the delegates who remained
consumed their canapés and sipped their wine. I approached this, in the spirit
of the acronym for the day, by following LICK with CHEW – standing for
“Carrying Home Experts’ Wisdom”. Needless to say, it was the wisdom of the
speakers and participants which I had in mind, not my own! This is a brief
summary of my postscript.
Outline
I took as my theme the approach followed by Stephen Brookfield in some of his
lectures. He would commence by telling his students the question which he
intended to address and why he thought it important; and he then concluded by
asking them what question that had raised in their mind, and what they
proposed to do to find an answer. I warned my audience that I would do the
same.
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Yet I noted that content featured a great deal in what Betty Collis had to say;
and that Martin Oliver also spoke of the co-creation of knowledge. I wondered if
the title for the day had seduced us to steer clear of higher level objectives. I
was heartened when a questioner in the first session rightly (in my judgement)
raised the issue of preparing students to use important skills.
We then find a source of marks, bonus marks, with which such learning can be
recognised and rewarded. When I mention this eccentric approach in academic
company, I note that more than a third of those gathered nod agreement - and
that there is almost a competition to contribute, in terms which begin: “I had an
example of that recently, when…”
During the day, I found many mentions of such outcomes, and even of demands
from speakers for diversifying learning to include them; but as yet hardly
anything of schemes for properly recognising unplanned outcomes. I needed to
think more about that. Maybe you do, too?
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Betty Collis had warned us early on that “assessment remains a real challenge”.
This would not come as anything new to an audience familiar with the fact that
assessment which does not reward or encourage what the teachers claim to
value is perhaps the greatest weakness in British higher education. I mentioned
that, any time I am asked for advice from a newly appointed auditor, external
examiner or reviewer in the UK system, I advise them to look at the module
boxes, check assessed outcomes against declared outcomes, and begin to
enquire about the marked differences which I can almost guarantee they will
quickly find.
Carrying forward my concern for higher level abilities from my first question, I
mentioned that I am acutely aware that higher level abilities cannot be judged
from full information about performance - without the involvement of the
learner. Often only the learner knows if a creative performance is original to a
breathtaking extent, or an adaptation of something encountered elsewhere and
(rightly) admired, or repetition of an earlier creative effort.
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engaged in e-moderation, Panos Vlachopoulos reported much to be learnt from
mistakes in e-moderation, and the occurrence of many mistakes to be learnt
from. Happily there were bright spots as far as evaluation was concerned.
Angela Benzies and Jane McDowell described an iterative development, in a
commendable partnership between and information scientist and an academic,
where there had been delightfully systematic and purposeful formative
evaluation.
Overall, though, during a day which concentrated a great deal on innovation and
change, formative and summative evaluation, and means of collecting useful
data, were seldom mentioned. I was left asking if we give this priority enough
attention.
I joyed while wrestling with this dilemma to find what was for me the greatest
gem in the day’s collection and offerings. This was Steve Draper’s paper on
“Learning and Community”. In this, he identifies our teaching role, today and
tomorrow, in a visionary and inspiring way, even if under what I felt was the
regrettable title of “teacher monitoring”.
So what questions did I take with me for the journey home and
thereafter?
I had made progress with the questions on my original list, as I hope I have
indicated; but they still remained, with amendments and enlargements. To
these I added:
• Martin Oliver’s issue regarding the two perspectives (see his paper, in
which he does more justice to this than could I);
• A sneaking concern expressed in a question which developed for me
through the day, as I related back to my absent colleagues and their
priorities and practices: “How typical are we of the sector, its concerns
and its progress?”
• Finally, in a climate where more and more teachers advocate group
working, interaction and social-constructivism, I’m troubled to sort
out: “At what point does or even must deep understanding become
self-created and personal?”
I dwelt for a short time on that last question, airing experiences in which my
studies of problem-solving students had revealed their need in the end to
summarise and apply their approach in terms of highly personal metaphors and
similes with which few if any peers, or tutors, could identify.
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a setting where acronyms were popular, I struggled to find yet another
expansion of “LICK”, and could only overwork the letter “K” (as is so often done
nowadays), and suggested feebly:
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