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2013: ASCILITE 2013 Conference Proceedings. Electric Dreams

 

 

 

The proceedings of the 2013 ASCILITE Conference

Electric Dreams

H, Carter, M. Gosper, & J. Hedberg (Eds.) Electric Dreams. Proceedings ASCILITE 2013 Sydney.

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

December 1-4, 2013. 

ASCILITE2013 Conference Website https://ascilite.org/conferences/sydney13/

Published: 30 November 2013

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

  • Mobile learning and professional development: Future building academic work in higher education

    Maxine Mitchell, Shirley Reushle

    Educators use social media to enrich student learning experiences in the classroom and use personal mobile devices to extend their workplace and productivity across time and space. As learning becomes more mobile, social and informal, the divide between spaces, places and digital devices is merging. Given the disruptive effect learning mobility is having on the foundations of education, knowledge, learning and academic work, this exploratory paper investigates the possible relationship between mobile learning and professional development as potential enablers (or barriers) to academic motivation and engagement in transforming their professional practice. This paper holds the central tenet of 'educators are learners', adopts an 'as-lived' experiences approach which looks at the ways people experience, in this case, mobile learning in natural settings, and is fundamentally concerned with contributing to the body of knowledge on the changing nature of the higher education teacher's academic work in the modern academy. The principal questions guiding this exploratory paper are 'What alternatives are there to current professional development methods that support educators in ways of learning about mobile learning to transform professional practice?' and 'Why are some academics naturally motivated to engage, share and actively participate in alternatives?'

    Read article: Mobile learning and professional development: Future building academic work in higher education

  • Technology as a creative partner: Unlocking learner potential and learning

    Vickel Narayan

    The value of technology in education is still discounted by many academics. In many instances where technology is considered for learning and teaching, it is done without any pedagogical reasoning or within traditional practices. This limits the role that technology could play in enhancing the learning experience and learning. While the intangible aspect of technology such as communication, collaboration, co-creation and sharing have the potential to significantly impact on student learning, the tangible affordances of technology made possible by 3D printers or Arduino cards can also play a critical role in student cognitive and creative development. Using Pedagogy 2.0 as a framework for the redesign of a first year computing course, this paper discusses the findings of how embedded use of mobile social media, Arduino and emerging 3D technologies, impacted on student and student learning within the proposed participatory design-based research (PDBR) approach. The paper reports on the implementation and findings from the first iteration of a two-iteration PDBR cycle.

    Read article: Technology as a creative partner: Unlocking learner potential and learning

  • The Learning Ecosystem: A practical, holistic approach to old problems in a new world

    Leona Norris, Annora Eyt-Dessus, Clive Holtham

    This paper reflects our journey towards the dream of a seamlessly enhanced teaching and learning framework to support our academic excellence through VLEs. While we often seek to move forward and embrace the future of education, it is increasingly important to reflect on the importance of our present, both in terms of a stable base to build onto and as a rich source of lessons to be learnt. We therefore seek move away from repeating the mistakes of our past, taking a broader holistic perspective of the embedding of technology in education. Our model and practices draw on literature to build on analogy of a learning ecosystem, which then informs our first steps in a brave, new "recombinant" form.

    Read article: The Learning Ecosystem: A practical, holistic approach to old problems in a new world

  • Enhancement of scientific research and communication skills using assessment and ePortfolio in a third year Pathology course

    Patsie Polly, Thuan Thai, Adele Flood, Kathryn Coleman, Mita Das, Jia Lin Yang, Julian Cox

    While science students are often aware of their gain in scientific knowledge through their degree, the same cannot be said for their understanding of their development of generic skills. Often, such development is tacit, both for the students and the staff teaching them. ePortfolios have been used to address the important issue of professional skills building and career preparedness for undergraduate science students in several courses across two degree programs. This report focuses on a third year Pathology course, PATH3205 Molecular Basis of Inflammation and Infection, taken by students who typically focus on pathology at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). The overall teaching, learning and assessment strategy requires the students to engage in the use of an ePortfolio as part of their reflective learning process in developing life-long and life- wide skills in research thinking and writing which underpin research-intensive activities. The Mahara ePortfolio application was made available via Moodle and linked explicitly to a series of assessment tasks associated with current research activities in pathology. The study documented the responses of students to the use of ePortfolios and related learning activities, through both the recording of acquired skills and emerging understanding of the student perceptions of themselves as professionals from a generic skills perspective. These skills are ultimately transferable into professional scientific careers. This study was designed to further inform the development of reflective practice, enhancement of generic skills and career awareness and readiness in a program-wide implementation in Medical Science and Advanced Science. Through that implementation we hope students will better understand their present and imagine their future.

    Read article: Enhancement of scientific research and communication skills using assessment and ePortfolio in a third year Pathology course

  • Using Twitter in Higher Education

    Sarah Prestridge

    The use of the social networking tool Twitter was incorporated into a first year education studies course to support the Universities development of First Year students' academic culture, connectedness and resourcefulness. A hashtag was created using the course code where students were encouraged to paraphrase, question and provoke thinking during face to face and individual study time. Student tweets were analysed qualitatively using three types of interaction; learner- learner-instructor; leaner-content & learner-interface. The tweets offer insight into both the social and cognitive engagement of student during their first year of university study.

    Read article: Using Twitter in Higher Education

  • nDiVE: The Story of How Logistics and Supply Chain Management Could be Taught

    Torsten Reiners, Lincoln C. Wood, Sue Gregory, Natasha Petter, Hanna Teras, Vanessa Chang, Christian Giitl, Jan Herrington

    One major element of supply chain management education is helping learners to grasp the complexity, the challenges, and the efficient management of the multiple dimensions in supply chains. Each decision made can 'ripple' through supply chains and have serious repercussions that may include causing millions of dollars in damage or triggering a chain of events that degrade the quality of life for people, society, or the environment. We can teach relevant theory and train learners for some situations that do not require immediate responses. However, we remain disadvantaged by the constraints of time and space; observation of a real supply chain is often unpractical, and lengthy times for transports exceeding any class duration. In this paper, we present the nDiVE project which creates a supply chain story to immerse learners, provide an authentic experience in a realistic environment, and apply traditional and advanced gamification mechanisms to engage and motivate learners.

    Read article: nDiVE: The Story of How Logistics and Supply Chain Management Could be Taught

  • Using online learning modules to fight against antibiotic resistance in Australia

    Jorge Reyna, Santosh Khanal, Tessa Morgan

    NPS MedicineWise and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) have launched a series of online learning modules designed to help combat antibiotic resistance in hospitals. The aim of the modules is to fill a previously unmet need for an online teaching resource on a common curriculum for hospitals and universities. The modules address specific areas where antibiotic use in hospitals needs improvement. Problem Based Learning has been used as pedagogical approach for the modules. Clinical scenarios are presented with a logical progression of tasks including clinical assessment and diagnosis, investigations, interpretation of results, and antibiotic selection. Expert advice and feedback has been incorporated at each step, helping to improve learning outcomes. Learners can access the modules at their own pace and revisit them upon completion. We report, for the first time, participants' perceptions of the antimicrobial modules as learning resource, usability issues, and possible areas of improvement.

    Read article: Using online learning modules to fight against antibiotic resistance in Australia

  • OpenTab: Imagining an open, mobile future for first year business students

    Matthew Riddle, Ruth Jelley, Nauman Saeed

    The OpenTab project investigated an open educational (OE) approach to developing course materials using tablet devices (iPads) to access Open Educational Resources (OERs). It explored the implications of applying an open approach to the development of materials for use in the faculty's new common first year core (CFYC) subjects. Conducted in parallel with a trial roll out of tablet devices in a core subject in the School of Business, the project revealed a range of issues that the project team intends to address as it continues to develop a model workflow for other subjects in the university.

    Read article: OpenTab: Imagining an open, mobile future for first year business students

  • Using technology to enable flipped classrooms whilst sustaining sound pedagogy

    Michael Sankey, Lynne Hunt

    This paper initially provides an understanding of what constitutes a flipped classroom model. It then provides a series of four case studies that describe the application of some different flipped classroom approaches to university courses, largely mediated by the use of online learning technologies. It demonstrates that these flipped classrooms are informed by constructivist pedagogy and highlights the role university teachers can play in facilitating their students' engagement with learning. It also highlights that to be successful in this transition to a new mode of learning requires both a holistic institutional planning approach, one based within a coherent student learning journey model, and sustained development by a team of centralised support staff, including technology experts, librarians and learning designers. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications associated with adopting a flipped classroom approach.

    Read article: Using technology to enable flipped classrooms whilst sustaining sound pedagogy

  • Chemtunes: A pilot study of setting the rote to music

    Mark Schier, Daniel Eldridge

    Rote learning can be dull! Yet for students to be successful at higher levels of education, there is a large base set of knowledge or vocabulary that must be learned and recognised, despite the absence of any rhyme or reason in said knowledge. This is commonly true of many sciences and languages. Historically, such information has been learned by rote and drills - both quite effective techniques, but not very engaging. The current project investigates the production of musical parodies with lyrics attuned to the knowledge requirements of the student as a means of increasing accessibility, student interest and overall information retention. The success of this work-in-progress venture will be explored through student participation, feedback and results on related examination questions.

    Read article: Chemtunes: A pilot study of setting the rote to music

  • Turn on the book: Using affordance theory to understand the adoption of digital textbooks by university lecturers

    Debborah Smith, Jeffrey E. Brand, Shelley Kinash

    Adoption of digital textbooks in higher education has been slower than was expected. This paper presents preliminary findings from a study conducted at a small Australian university looking into how lecturers use digital textbooks. The pilot research indicated that the slow uptake may be explained by academic perception; participants indicated a strong preference for printed books, particularly related to capacity for accessing content. This pointed to a definitional property in that they largely conceived of an eTextbook as a digital replica of a printed book. Not all lecturers were aware of enhanced digital textbooks, but generally agreed that it could be advantageous to have such content integrated into a central resource. Lecturers furthermore acknowledged the need to understand the affordances of educational technologies and their application to learning and teaching. Affordances theory is used to consider the knowledge required to effectively implement the full range of resources available in digital textbooks.

    Read article: Turn on the book: Using affordance theory to understand the adoption of digital textbooks by university lecturers

  • Exploring summative peer assessment during a hybrid undergraduate supply chain course using Moodle

    Kenneth David Strang

    The main hypothesis of this recent study was that student peer assessing could produce a fair grade in a hybrid undergraduate supply chain course. A key challenge was there were three long written assignments weighted at 90% of the course spread throughout 15 weeks (the final exam in week 16 was weighted at 10%). The secondary goal was to explore if Moodle could facilitate the online assessment of the three project management plans (PPs). A PP was approximately 25 single-spaced pages, based on a unique initiative for each of the 45 students, and it was evaluated against nine Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) standards as well as other course learning objectives. The PMBOK lectures were classroom-based, data collection was field- based for authentic experiential learning while the LMS was essential for material sharing and assignment management. Interrater reliability, correlation and pair-wise t-test estimates supported the hypotheses. Peer assessments were found to be reliable between students and consistent with the professor's evaluations. Moodle's workshop module was effective but there were two minor shortcomings: (1) reliabilities must be estimated manually, and (2) there was only one rudimentary algorithm in Moodle to calculate the student rater grade for peer assessment quality.

    Read article: Exploring summative peer assessment during a hybrid undergraduate supply chain course using Moodle

  • Caring dialogue: A step toward realising the dream of online learning communities

    Jennie Swann, Peter Albion

    Online educators dream of facilitating interpersonal interactions equivalent to those in face-to-face classrooms as an important factor for promoting learning in online classes. Many current university students are comfortable with online networks as social spaces where they interact with family and friends, but they need help in making them effective as places of learning. A design research study found that the caring dimension of Lipman's (2003) community of inquiry was fundamental to supporting the critical and creative dialogues necessary for development of higher order thinking. It developed and refined an interactive website that may support online educators in realizing the dream of building relationships that more effectively support learning.

    Read article: Caring dialogue: A step toward realising the dream of online learning communities

Showing 27–39 of 130 articles