Day three of the ascilite 2008 conference offers a variety of interesting presentations commencing with a keynote presentation from Associate Professor Piet Kommers.
Please note that morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch are included in the registration fee.
Jan Herrington, Jessica Mantei, Anthony Herrington, Ian Olney and Brian Ferry
Faculty of Education
University of Wollongong
This paper describes a major development and research study that investigated the use of mobile technologies in higher education. The project investigated the educational potential of two ubiquitous mobile devices: Palm smart phones and iPod digital audio players (mp3 players). An action learning framework for professional development was designed and implemented with a group of teachers from a Faculty of Education. Each teacher or team created pedagogies to implement appropriate use of a mobile device in different subject areas in higher education. This paper describes the project aims, design and implementation in four phases, together with a description of the project management and communication factors that helped to ensure its success.
Keywords: mobile learning, mobile technologies, mobile learning, authentic learning, designbased research, higher education
Anthony Herrington
Faculty of Education
University of Wollongong
The development of digital resources set in authentic contexts using mobile technologies is reflected in this study. The research involved adult educators creating teaching episodes or digital narratives using smartphones, as part of a postgraduate subject designed to introduce these learners to technological applications in adult education. The study involved interviewing students to determine the affordances of the technology in this context and the pedagogical strategies suited to such an approach.
Keywords: mobile learning, mobile phones, adult education. authentic learning
Ian Olney, Jan Herrington and Irina Verenikina
Faculty of Education
University of Wollongong
Mobile technologies are making inroads in many aspects of education. The potential of many of these devices is being explored in a range of educational environments but early childhood educators are not commonly early adopters of these new technologies. This paper examines the process and impact of iPods on these students' creation of original digital stories to support their understanding of how young children learn. The pedagogical approach is described in detail together with observations on the process, lessons learned, and extensions of the activity into other discipline areas.
Keywords: iPod, talking picture books, digital stories, early childhood, preservice teacher education
Lisa Kervin and Jessica Mantei
Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong
Mobile technologies offer significant possibilities for educators. This paper explores the use of iPods as a tool to bring together the teaching field and the tertiary classroom. We have designed a learning experience to engage our students in collecting and reflecting upon knowledge shared by practitioners in the field. It builds upon the premise that educators need to consistently gather and evaluate evidence to inform their professional practice. The task encourages students to consider the 'teacher wisdom' (Labbo, Leu, Kinzer, Teale, Cammack, Kara-Soteriou, & Sanny, 2003) that can be gathered and disseminated through 'new literacies' (such as podcasts) as they plan, record and edit an oral text to share with their student colleagues through their subject website.
Keywords: iPods, mobile technology, pedagogy, field experience, early career teachers
Rob van Zanten
School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide
The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of podcasting the traditional classroom lecture to distance (external) and on-campus (internal) students. Download data are compared for distance and on-campus students enrolled in the same course. This exploratory research shows that for distance students at least, the lecture podcast appears to have some pedagogical merit. However, the format may have its limitations as shown by the marked decline in download activity of successive lectures in both of the courses examined.
Keywords: educational podcasting, audio, distance education, lecture recording, teaching and learning strategies
Tom Petrovic, Gregor Kennedy, Rosemary Chang and Jenny Waycott
Biomedical Multimedia Unit
The University of Melbourne
We describe a semester long pilot project in which a podcasting system was created to support informal peer learning in a problem based medical curriculum with so called Net Generation students. Students could create short podcasts that communicated their understanding, difficulties or opinions to their peers about the weekly clinical problem under investigation. Student activity was logged throughout and a focus group was held at the end of semester. About one quarter of the student cohort used the podcasting system but very few students created podcasts. Students were interested in listening as consumers of content and a small group visited the site weekly to check for updates. However, student engagement with the podcasting system required incentives. It seems that in the absence of quality content, the technology itself does not provide enough incentive to drive participation.
Keywords: peer learning, podcast, net generation, Web 2.0, higher education
Wendy McKenzie
School of Psychology, Psychiatry & Psychological Medicine, Monash University
The increasing availability of audio recordings of lectures is having an impact on the role of the traditional lecture in universities. The reasons why students use lecture recordings have been well documented, however, less is known about the impact of listening to recorded lectures on the quality of the learning experience. Undergraduate psychology students were asked to rate how well attending lectures and listening to audio recordings of lectures met a range of learning objectives. The results show that, compared to attending lectures, listening to recorded lectures was at least as effective in meeting the learning objectives, and even rated significantly higher than attendance in relation to acquiring information and clarifying what needs to be learned. Notwithstanding the limitations of the study, the results are encouraging in terms of the usefulness of lecture recordings in meeting the lecture needs of today's students, that is, if information transmission is the primary goal.
Keywords: audio recordings of lectures, learning objectives, lectures
David Cameron and Brett Van Heekeren
School of Communications
Charles Sturt University
Educational podcasting takes many forms, from lecture recordings to student-produced discussions of study topics. This paper describes a pilot project that aims to consider the significance that adopting a particular presentational 'voice' may have on how understanding of that content is shaped. It is based on Gardner Campbell's (2005) notion of the 'explaining voice' of radio as a model for effective educational podcasting, drawing on the nuances of broadcasting style to enhance understanding of the content. The project draws on the production resources and training opportunities available due to the presence of an on-campus community radio station. The paper then outlines preliminary research into the potential benefits of developing a radio-like stylistic approach to podcasting in a university setting.
Keywords: podcasting, radio, explaining voice, broadcasting, education, presentation style
Julie Mackey
School of Literacies and Arts in Education, University of Canterbury
Blended learning holds promise for re-thinking the various ways that learning theory, pedagogy, and technology might be brought together to engage learners. This paper draws on variation theory and social learning theory to describe how blended learning can facilitate learning experiences which occur across the boundaries, and at the intersections, of communities. The data is drawn from a preliminary analysis of a project investigating the connections between online learning and teachers' communities of practice. The emerging premise is that teachers (as learners) negotiate much of the 'blend' themselves as they work simultaneously in their school communities and engage in online learning communities. While the online learning community provides the experiences of variation necessary to provoke reflection and engagement with new ideas, teachers situate their learning within their daily practice. This authentic participation is an integral part of the workplace learning experience but this aspect is often overlooked in blended learning discussions. Higher education institutions offering virtual professional development programmes would benefit from leveraging learners' participation in everyday work as a valuable ingredient in the blended learning experience. Online professional development can adopt a thoughtfully designed blend of mode and environment incorporating virtual and real interaction, and study and real work to support teachers' learning.
Keywords: blended learning, teacher professional development
Ann McGrath, Julie Mackey and Niki Davis
School of Literacies and Arts in Education, University of Canterbury
The professional development landscape is being redrawn as e-learning and educational technologies provide opportunities for participants to connect everyday life and formal online learning in new and dynamic ways. These connections call for authentic learning pedagogies which challenge traditional teacher/learner relationships, formal course design and assessment practices. This paper explores some of the difficulties and benefits arising from responsive course design requiring mutual engagement and collaboration between teachers and learners, and where learning and assessment are framed by authentic problems and situated in everyday contexts. We explore how relevant knowledge can be constructed and assessed within an elearning community; specifically how e-learning can facilitate learner-negotiated pathways linking work/interests and study; and provide a balance between flexibility and structure in course design to enable participants to select relevant activities and resources. This investigation into the practices and strategies of linking work and study has highlighted changing relationships between people, the virtual and the physical, and objects in our educational technology landscape.
Keywords: e-learning, teaching on-line, authentic, professional development
Tim Griffin
School of Social Sciences, University of Western Sydney
Rosemary Thomson
Teaching Development Unit, University of Western Sydney
This paper outlines the model of blended learning which has evolved in a large enrolment undergraduate subject offered across multiple campuses. The pedagogical rationale, management and administrative imperatives, and student expectations which have informed the development of the model are discussed. The current design uses weekly online selfdirected learning activities supported by an online tutor, maintains weekly face-to-face lectures which are positively evaluated by students and well attended throughout the semester, and has reduced the number and changed the function of face-to-face tutorials. Student and teaching staff evaluations of the current blended learning model are included along with challenges for ongoing development.
Keywords: blended learning, first-year students, independent learning, higher education
Amy Wong and Jason Fitzsimmons
U21Global, Singapore
Along with the rapid growth in Internet-based instruction there have been concerns about the
quality of online instruction and whether traditional student evaluations of faculty are suitable
in online environments. This study uses data collected from ongoing student evaluations of
faculty in an MBA program within an online university to investigate the factors leading to
student ratings of overall professor facilitator performance and overall satisfaction with the
course. Using factor analysis we investigated the underlying factors related to the items on the
survey which revealed factors relating to personal attributes of the professor facilitator,
learning facilitation and quality of feedback. Results from regression analysis finds that
evaluations of overall professor facilitator performance is predominantly driven by both the professor's attributes and learning facilitation while overall student satisfaction is largely driven by factors associated with learning facilitation.
Keywords: student evaluation of faculty, student satisfaction, professor facilitator performance
Megan Quentin-Baxter
Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, Newcastle University, UK
Jacquie Kelly
JISC infoNet, Northumbria University, UK
Stephen Probert
Business, Management, Accountancy and Finance, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Cary MacMahon
JISC TechDis, Higher Education Academy, UK
Gill Ferrell
JISC infoNet, Northumbria University, UK
A model for describing and collecting evidence with which to evaluate technology-enhanced learning was developed as part of the Tangible Benefits of e-Learning project which took place in the UK in 2007. This small study sampled innovative technological approaches to support learning in business, health and the humanities in the tertiary sector, and documented the results as case studies. The model, underpinned by theories of the potential of technology to bring about organisational change, is discussed in the context of the results observed. The model illustrates how technology-enhanced pedagogic innovation relies primarily on qualitative evidence, while evidence of the benefits of process-automation can be quantified. The model may help institutions to choose the most appropriate type of evaluation strategy when technology-enhanced learning innovations are being tested.
Keywords: Technology-enhanced learning, innovation, e-Learning, tangible benefits, evidence of organisational transformation.
Glenda Cox
University of Cape Town
This short paper explores what educational technologists in one South African Institution consider innovation to be. Ten educational technologists in various faculties across the university were interviewed and asked to define and answer questions about innovation. Their answers were coded and the results of the overlaps in coding have been assimilated into a definition. Soft systems methodology (SSM) was used as a method to approach the complexity of innovation in educational technology in one setting. The initial definition formed the 'situation definition' in SSM terms. The method proved useful in producing a picture (based on rich pictures drawn by each person) and a root definition (based on CATWOE a mnemonic that enables the interviewer to ask each participant to identify processes and role players).
Tom Browne
Department Educational Enhancement, Academic Services, University of Exeter
Martin Jenkins
Centre for Active Learning, University of Gloucestershire
Drawing on results from a Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) 2008 survey of technology enhanced learning use in UK universities, this paper highlights support issues that impact on achieving academic engagement. It will crossreference factors that were identified by respondents to the survey as encouraging development or that act as barriers with how TEL is supported. These sector wide findings will then be reflected upon with reference to two UK universities that represent the traditional binary divide in type of university in the UK. Lack of time is identified as a primary barrier with staff development as the primary remedy.
Keywords: educational technology support; academic engagement, strategies
Annette Schneider
School of Educational Leadership, Faculty of Education, Australian Catholic University
Andrelyn C. Applebee
Institute for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, Australian Catholic University
Joseph Perry
Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University
Research on academic leaders of Australian and international higher education institutions has shown how "the broader societal change forces that have unfolded over the past quarter century have generated a set of higher education specific pressures on universities to change, which, in turn, are testing the extent to which these institutions and their leaders are 'change capable'" (Scott, Coates and Anderson, 2008, p. xiii). Australian Catholic University (ACU) which has six campuses across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory, is responding to these change forces in accord with its mission to provide quality teaching, research and service. ACU has focussed on the development of policy, procedures and strategic initiatives related to eLearning. This paper reports on embedding of an initial Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project designed "to develop distributed leadership capacity in the pedagogical and evaluative dimensions of online teaching and learning" in which six academic staff members were funded for a new role as Online Advisers (OAs). The paper highlights the leadership learning which has occurred for the OAs, identifies ongoing challenges in terms of distributing leadership in a sustainable way for the enhancement of online teaching and learning (OTL) and offers eight insights and challenges into how such projects can be implemented by like institutions.
Keywords: leadership, eLearning, distributed, online, challenges, change, unknown future
Gillian Hallam
Australian ePortfolio Project
Queensland University of Technology
In 2007-2008, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded a national research project to examine the current picture of ePortfolio practice in Australian universities. The paper presents a review of the Australian ePortfolio Project, with a specific focus on the strong interest across the Australian higher education sector to establish communities of practice to support the sharing of knowledge and experience at the institutional, discipline and sector levels nationally. A number of international models of communities of practice that encourage the sharing of expertise through research and practice are outlined. The paper seeks to stimulate discussion about the possible opportunities for all ePortfolio stakeholders (learners, teachers, academic managers, ICT directors, educational technologists and learning and teaching support teams) to build and sustain a strong future.
Keywords: ePortfolios, communities of practice
Caroline H. Steel
Teaching and Education Development Institute, The University of Queensland
Stephen C. Ehrmann
The Teaching and Learning Technology Group
Phillip D. Long
Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology, The University of Queensland
ePortfolio progress has been slowed at many institutions by a technology-first attitude: a platform is chosen and then wider use of that platform is encouraged. One flaw in this strategy is that ePortfolios can be used for a variety of activities, each of which has somewhat different support needs (often including different technologies). A planning team at the University of Queensland decided to widen the engagement of the academic community by focusing attention on the activities, rather than on the software. The team's innovative planning process has many points of interest including the involvement of international expertise, the list of ePortfolio-supported activities, the workshop's tasks, and the use of Google spreadsheets to make small group breakouts work more quickly and effectively. The resulting half-day workshop has energised wider interest in ePortfolios at the university.
Keywords: ePortfolios, implementation, dissemination
Cathy Gunn
Centre for Academic Development, University of Auckland
Roger Peddie
Faculty of Education, University of Auckland
The University of Auckland's recently revised elearning strategy aims to support grass roots teaching and learning enhancement initiatives as well as providing standard tools for course administration and management. This offers teachers a significant degree of freedom to choose tools and strategies to suit their specific learning design requirements. This element of choice has implications for professional development and support services, and requires evaluation and testing of options during selection and implementation. ePortfolios are a current 'hot topic' that is being explored for educational purposes by three faculties. An eportfolio tool is available within the in-house learning management system. However, Mahara, the open source product of a nationally funded initiative is proving to be a more popular choice. This paper outlines a systematic approach to implementation and evaluation of faculty-based eportfolio initiatives that draws on the collaborative approach of designbased research.
Keywords: eportfolios, elearning strategy, design-based research, communities of practice, professional development
John O’Donoghue
Professor of Learning Technology, University of Central Lancashire, UK
John sits on the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC’s) Strategic Committee for Learning and Teaching as well as a number of JISC expert and advisory boards. John also is an executive committee member of ascilite.
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is funded by the UK HE and FE funding bodied to provide world-class leadership in the innovative use of ICT to support education and research. JISC funds a national services portfolio (e.g. JANET) and a range of programmes (e.g. Use of Technology to Support Admissions to HE). JISC's activities support education and research by promoting innovation in new technologies and by the central support of ICT services. JISC provides: