ASCILITE NEWS
New AJET Lead Editors announced
The AJET Lead Editors and ASCILITE Executive are excited to announce the appointment of a new Lead Editor team for the society’s peer reviewed journal. The new team will work alongside the current team for the remainder of 2020 and take on full duties in 2021.
The new editors are:
- Associate Professor Linda Corrin – Swinburne University of Technology
- Professor Gwo-Jen Hwang – National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
- Associate Professor Jason Lodge – The University of Queensland
- Associate Professor Kate Thompson – Queensland University of Technology
ASCILITE thanks the current Lead Editors, Michael Henderson, Eva Heinrich and Petrea Redmond for their immense contribution and leadership in ensuring that AJET continues to be one of the world’s leading journals in educational technology.
AJET Lead Editor recognised as Top Researcher
Michael Henderson (AJET Lead Editor) has been recognised as the top researcher in the field of education among 30 researchers in the social sciences, each recognised as a leader in their respective field. The recognition comes from the Australian (newspaper) which selected academic researchers who have the highest number of citations from papers published in the last five years in the 20 top journals in their field. The full list is available here.
Latest TELall blog post: Educational Designers: a sure hope and anchor amid a global pandemic
In our latest blog post, Amanda Bellaby (Queensland University of Technology) and Michael Sankey (Griffith University) discuss the increasingly important role of education design in tertiary education. Prior to COVID-19, the higher education sector had long recognised educational design as an area of professional expertise across diverse areas such as course design, academic mentorship and collaboration, project management and educational research (Brown, et al., 2020). Not surprising then, during this crisis Educational Designers have experienced an increased demand for their expertise, particularly in online learning.
Amanda (mentee) and Michael (mentor) were connected via the ASCILITE Community Mentoring Program (CMP), which provides great opportunities for research and engagement such as that outlined in this blog post. If you would like to find-out more about the CMP and how to become a mentor or mentee in 2021, visit the ASCILITE website here and keep an eye out for the EOI announcement in December.
A brief version of this article was published in the Campus Morning Mail on 30 Sept. You’ll find the more detailed version on TELall.
Reminder to vote in the 2020 ASCILITE Executive Committee Election poll
ASCILITE Executive Committee members perform critical volunteer roles that ensure ASCILITE remains a sustainable, vibrant and relevant tertiary education community. As a valued ASCILITE community member, we invited all members on 30 September to vote in order to ensure the continuing success of the peak professional body for digital learning and teaching in Australasia.
If you have not already voted, this is a reminder to vote before the closing date of 21 October. Voting only takes a few minutes. Because we are unable to re-send the unique voting links embedded in your email invitation, please check your inbox for an email with the subject line “Invitation to vote in the 2020 ASCILITE Executive Committee Election poll” dated 30 September. You will find full details on the poll and how to vote in the email.
Webinar: Using Simulations as a Learning Alternative (Business Education SIG)
Mark your calendars for 3 November @ 10:30 – 11:30 am AEDT (Australia) for this value packed webnar For session start times in other time zones, go here.
Abstract: The ASCILITE Business Education SIG is delighted to invite you to their webinar in which Ms Audrea Warner (University of Auckland) and Dr Sandy Barker (University of South Australia) will share insights from their rich experience of using simulations to enhance student learning. Simulations have been used in Business Schools across Australia and New Zealand for over twenty years. This webinar will explore the benefits offered to students that other learning methods, for example traditional lectures or case discussions, do not offer. Students play a role within the simulation, rather than merely reading and analysing concepts and ideas. Students are able to synthesise and integrate what they read and then make decisions with consequences based on facts or data from the simulations, to consolidate and co-create a deeper understanding. The webinar will also focus on the student reactions to using the simulations, explore what the presenters have learnt as academics from using simulations into their courses.
Presenters:: Audrea Warner is a Professional Teaching Fellow in the Graduate School of Management, University of Auckland. She has over 17 years of teaching experience in Organisational Behaviour, Human Resource Management and Marketing. Audrea feels a strong sense of responsibility to engage, enlighten, and empower her students both now and for the future. She wants her students to learn from the past, be proactive in the present and work for a better tomorrow. This year Audrea has been working with both national and international academics to present at webinars, write academic blogs and collaborate on research papers on the impact of COVID 19 and the innovative ways academics and organisations have adapted to the emerging academic landscape to support students embrace new learning approaches. She is co-leading ASCILITE’s Business Education SIG.
Sandy Barker is a Lecturer and Digital Learning Leader in Management at UniSA Business. As the Digital Learning Leader she takes responsibility for working with academic colleagues to ensure a high standard of digital resources for all students. As a lecturer Sandy is involved in teaching and curriculum development for undergraduate students in both Australia and Hong Kong as well as coordinating coursework practicums/placements for final year undergraduates. Sandy has a PhD (Business), Graduate Diploma in Education Studies (Digital Learning), Graduate Certificate in Education (University Teaching), and a Bachelor of Applied Science (Chemistry). Sandy is interested in experiential learning research with a focus on work placements, graduate qualities/enterprise skills, learning analytics, business simulations and role play. All courses that she teaches have an experiential component to ensure students are ready for the professional world as soon as they graduate. She is a current member of the ASCILITE Executive, was the Convenor for the 2016 ASCILITE conference and was on the organising committee of the 2003 ASCILITE conference held in Adelaide.
Registration: Pre-registration is not required and the webinar is open to ASCILITE members and non-members at no cost.
Session Login: Please join us on Blackboard Collaborate using this link: https://au.bbcollab.com/guest/f0e9db10ad6445c4a11a3b5e3fe74112
ASCILITE 2020 Virtual Conference Registration is Open
Registration is open for the ASCILITE virtual conference (30 Nov – 2 Dec 2020). The registration fee for ASCILITE members is $25 for virtual attendance only and $175 for non-members. The non-member rate includes one year ASCILITE membership valued at $150. Don’t miss this great Technology Enhanced Learning event. Find-out more here.
Recent ASCILITE SIG Webinar Recordings
ASCILITE SIGs continue to offer topical webinars to members and below are four recent sessions facilitated by the Learning Analytics SIG and the Business Education SIG respectively. SIG sessions are open to members and non-members and are cost free. All recordings are available on ASCILITE’s YouTube channel and the TELedvisors SIG also facilitates regular sessions that are available on YouTube (search for “teledvisors”).
LA-SIG: Design principles for human-centered actionable learning analytics
Designing for effective and efficient pedagogical interventions and orchestration in complex Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) ecosystems is an increasingly challenging issue. In spite of the significant potential of Learning Analytics (LA) research, it is still unclear how can LA be designed to position teachers as designers of effective interventions and orchestration actions. This talk argues for Human-Centered Design (HCD) and orchestration of actionable learning analytics. It provides a review of needs and existing approaches for HCD in LA is provided, and it proposes three HCD principles for LA solutions, i.e., agentic positioning of teachers and other stakeholders; integration of the learning design cycle and the LA design process; and reliance on educational theories to guide the LA solution design and implementation.
LA-SIG: The impact of COVID-19 on the use of learning analytics in higher education
The increase in the use of educational technology in response to the COVID-19 situation means that there are now even greater volumes of student data being generated and collected by higher education institutions. This would appear to present an opportunity for learning analytics to be utilised to help teachers and students to improve educational environments, strategies and outcomes, as long as the access to data, tools and skills are available.
In this online, an interactive panel session comprising of learning analytics specialists across four Australian universities discussed how the COVID-19 situation has impacted the use of learning analytics in their institutions. Participants shared their own experiences about what we can learned and taken forward from this current situation to support future uses of learning analytics in higher education.
BE-SIG: On-Demand Exams
In this webinar, held on 29 September 2020, Brent Gregory shared insights from his rich experience of offering On-Demand Exams. The introduction of Online Exams to UNE was an enabler for new thinking about how we structure units that are exam dependent. UNE is no longer constrained by the exam timetable straightjacket and is able to mould the whole learning journey to better match the rich tapestry of skills, experiences and circumstances that its students bring to the learning environment. On-Demand exams supported by the progression pipeline enables greater control to students and helps academics better understand the most effective pathways adopted by students.
Be sure to read this recently published blog that covers “on-demand exams” in more detail: https://blog.ascilite.org/using-on-demand-exams-to-support-scalable-personalisation/
BE-SIG: Work Integrated Learning (WIL)
The BE-SIG’s first webinar, held on 11 August 2020, discussed ‘Work Integrated Learning (WIL) placements and projects which enable students to interact directly with host industries or communities to work on real-life problems or projects. With COVID 19 restrictions, it was timely to discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with engaging students in authentic virtual WIL experiences offered via online platforms, which may be independent of time, space, geographical boundaries and disciplines.’ This session was co-facilitated by Assoc Prof Harsh Suri (Deakin University), Ms Friederika Kaider (Deakin University) and Dr Sandra Barker (University of South Australia).
