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2012: ASCILITE 2012 Conference Proceedings: FUTURE CHALLENGES | SUSTAINABLE FUTURES

 

 

 

 

The proceedings of the 2012 ASCILITE Conference

Brown, M., Hartnett, M. and Stewart, T. (Eds.), FUTURE CHALLENGES | SUSTAINABLE FUTURES Proceedings ASCILITE 2012: Wellington, New Zealand

Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

November 25-28, 2012

ASCILITE2012 Conference Website - https://www.ascilite.org/conferences/Wellington12/2012/home.html

Published: 22 November 2012

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

  • Going mobile: Each small change requires another

    Peter Albion, Romina Jamieson-Proctor, Petrea Redmond, Kevin Larkin, Andrew Maxwell

    Students are seeking flexible study opportunities. Smartphones have potential to support learning at times and places chosen by learners but their introduction presents challenges in negotiating the changes in the behaviour of learners and in the materials and activities provided by university courses. This project, funded by DEHub in two Queensland universities, explored how students used mobile devices with many characteristics of smartphones. This paper reports on the first phase that investigated the changes required to facilitate access to course materials and activities using the devices. Data have been viewed through the lens of activity theory. The results confirmed the need for developing skills and managing expectations of learners and academics and for adjustments to design of course materials and delivery systems to facilitate access.

    Read article: Going mobile: Each small change requires another

  • LMS Encounters: Promises and Realities : (e)Learning for Sustainable Futures?

    Reem Al-Mahmood

    Although there are radical opportunities afforded by e-learning technologies (Hemmi, Bayne & Land, 2009), digital Learning Management Systems (LMSs) can be risky and ?disorienting spaces? for participants (Bayne & Ross, 2007) even though they often replicate traditional rituals and forms of university bricks and mortar teaching spaces. Whilst we need e-platform standards, we also need flexibility and diversity to avoid replicating sameness in LMS design and implementation. In any educational platform selection, there are always risks and uncertainties, but if we embrace informed, sustainable and ecological design, we can evolve beyond purely market-driven agendas towards pedagogical designs that have a 'learning-centric university mission' (Ellis & Goodyear, 2010, p. 153). This paper juxtaposes LMS discourses in theory with participant LMS experiences in practice. Emergent tensions of (hyper)textualising the university are discussed with/against neoliberal agendas of the (dis)embodied individual. At the forefront of our research agendas, we need to move beyond espoused e-learning technology promises to consider participant realities to inform (e)learning designs and choices, whilst experimenting with how to create sustainable learning/knowledge spaces for sustainable (e)learning futures.

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  • Humanizing e-lecturers and engaging online writing students via dialogic video

    Martin Andrew

    This paper reports on a study of integrating instructor-produced video 'profcasts' (Edirisingha, Salmon & Fothergill, 2007) into all 12 units of an online Master of Arts in Writing delivered asynchronously. While the value of short, targeted, quickly-made podcasts and extensive streamed video lectures in educational contexts has been researched (Williams, Birch & Hancock, 2012), few studies consider how customized videocasts supplement and complement core content to create engaging units of learning that learners value. Instead of producing instructivist, sage-on- stage, reiterative lectures, the Writing team filmed lecturers in semi-spontaneous dialogues to create critically challenging interactive experiences. The teaching and learning challenge is deeper than humanizing e-lecturers; it is about creating sustainable interfaces drawing on unique human capital: the lecturers as future-makers. It is a journey of creating enduring and impactful resources. Foregrounded by a literature review, this paper presents qualitative data from students and staff responding to the question of how valuable dialogic videos are to students‘ experiences as online students of Writing. In addition to confirming students appreciate the humanizing of lecturers, data shows video makes ideas more accessible to visual learners and more engaging overall. Most importantly, informal dialogues with their exchanges of ideas clarify written course materials, supporting learning while helping to future-proof the program in a time of change.

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  • Thinking, researching and living in a virtual professional development community of practice

    Diana Ayling, Hazel Owen, Edward Flagg

    This paper is a comparative case study of two virtual professional development (VPD) communities of practice established and maintained to support teachers in their learning and development. Each community was studied and evaluated by its facilitator. The purpose of those studies was to identify behaviours and capture shifts in educators? professional identity as they engaged in VPD. The researchers were interested in those practices that indicated embedding of practice, co-construction of knowledge, and development of skills and values. Many of the factors identified in the VPD initiatives explored the link to the wider conversations that are occurring around education in general in a time of change.

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  • Analytics and complexity: Learning and leading for the future

    Colin Beer, David Jones, Damien Clark

    There is growing interest in the application of learning analytics to manage, inform and improve learning and teaching within higher education. In particular, learning analytics is seen as enabling data-driven decision making as universities are seeking to respond a range of significant challenges that are reshaping the higher education landscape. Experience over four years with a project exploring the use of learning analytics to improve learning and teaching at a particular university has, however, revealed a much more complex reality that potentially limits the value of some analytics-based strategies. This paper uses this experience with over 80,000 students across three learning management systems, combined with literature from complex adaptive systems and learning analytics to identify the source and nature of these limitations along with a suggested path forward.

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  • Learning for the future: Online student evaluation of generic and context-specific library skills tutorials

    Ruth Billany, Bernadette Royal, Isabelle Lys

    This paper reports on a project stimulated by two major challenges facing higher education in the twenty-first century; massification and the citizenisation of academies. This empirical study reports on the use of emergent technologies, in the acquisition of information, for diverse cohorts of students enrolled in two scientific subjects (n=47). A generic online library skills tutorial (LST) in one subject is compared to an embedded virtual, context-specific LST in another. Student attitudinal evaluation, both affective and cognitive, was measured by an 18-item online survey. The rich qualia showed a ten-fold difference which adds to a body of knowledge which was reinforced by an objective measure, a graded assignment. As consumers, the students have been valued and voiced their demands. Lecturers and librarians need to lead in this climate of change to develop a creative and emergent, reciprocal non-linear mechanism to build on this trajectory and plan a future for learning.

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  • Using Scenario Planning to Inform Pedagogical Practice in Virtual Worlds in Schools: Collaboration and Structure

    Christopher Alan Bonfield, Kevin John Burden, Andrew Cram, Katy Lumkin

    The learning affordances of virtual worlds have long being trumpeted; the barriers to the ?take up of virtual worlds in mainstream education have also been explored, with emphasis being placed on technical problems, lack of time and money. Yet, a challenge for future learning is how one teaches in a virtual world, and what research has been undertaken has focused largely upon tertiary education. Much less is understood about how school teachers should structure virtual lessons, and what level of collaboration or independent work is necessary to guide students towards attainment of learning outcomes. This paper will provide a theoretical review of teaching and learning in virtual worlds, and offer an initial discussion of the role and importance of structure and collaboration in virtual worlds in a school-based environment. This has been validated through four case studies using scenario-planning methodology, and drawing upon real- world practitioner-based examples.

    Read article: Using Scenario Planning to Inform Pedagogical Practice in Virtual Worlds in Schools: Collaboration and Structure

  • Do Open Educational Resources represent additional challenges or advantages to the current climate of change in the Australian higher education sector?

    Carina Bossu, Mark Brown, David Bull

    This paper briefly reports on a number of Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives in Australia, including some government programs and funding, then explores several of the challenges and advantages of adopting OER at institutional and individual (educators and learners) levels. This paper also discusses some of the preliminary findings of a centrally funded research project that investigates the state of play of OER in Australia. This project surveyed the higher education sector and interviewed key stakeholders. According to participants, the use of OER has the potential to lead to new pedagogical practices, can improve the quality of educational learning materials, and promote social inclusion across the Australian higher educational sector. However, there are still challenges to be overcome such as current academic culture, lack of awareness and issues related to finding quality materials. The above could represent additional challenges to the current climate of change faced by the higher educational sector in Australia.

    Read article: Do Open Educational Resources represent additional challenges or advantages to the current climate of change in the Australian higher education sector?

  • Use of media-rich real-time collaboration tools for learning and teaching in Australian and New Zealand universities

    Matt Bower, Gregor E. Kennedy, Barney Dalgarno, Mark J.W. Lee, Jacqueline Kenney, Paula de Barba

    This paper provides an overview of media-rich real-time collaboration tool use for learning and teaching in Australian and New Zealand universities. These tools, which include video conferencing tools, web conferencing tools and virtual worlds, afford students and teachers the ability to synchronously represent concepts, and enable them to interact with one another to negotiate meaning and develop a sense of connectedness. A survey of 750 higher educators revealed that while desktop video conferencing and web conferencing use display an upward trend, virtual worlds are being used by substantially fewer educators, and have recently begun to experience a decline in usage. There are four major web conferencing products being used, whereas desktop video conferencing and virtual worlds are each being dominated by a single product. The 'best' uses of each technology as perceived by respondents with experience in a range of tools are examined, before the paper concludes with a discussion of implications for tertiary learning and teaching, along with an outline of the authors' future plans.

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  • Sustaining new approaches to learning and teaching with technology: More than just a Wicked Problem

    Janet Buchan

    The basic premise of the 2012 Ascilite Conference theme is that; ‘what happened in the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future’. However, if we do not learn from what happened in the past, it may well be a reliable guide to an unsustainable future. In the face of constant change, in order for higher education institutions to achieve the goal of creating sustainable approaches to new models and learning and teaching with technology a fundamental paradigm shift in management approaches is required. To address this, an interdisciplinary focus is introduced and two key concepts from environmental management: Wicked Problems and adaptive management are applied to the higher education environment. Using evidence-based practice these aspects have been researched in-depth in a large, mixed-mode university.

    Read article: Sustaining new approaches to learning and teaching with technology: More than just a Wicked Problem

  • Extrinsic and intrinsic barriers in the use of ICT in teaching: A comparative case study in Singapore

    Wenli Chen, Ashley Tan, Cheryl Lim

    This study examined the use of ICT for teaching undertaken by two primary school teachers at pre-examination period and at post-examination period. Their perceptions of using ICT for teaching and learning and their ICT experiences were also analysed. The results showed that both teachers improved in ICT integration from Adoption stage to Adaptation stage after examination (when the curriculum is more flexible and teachers had more time for lessons), with increased scope and sophistication in ICT use in classrooms. These observations confirmed that extrinsic barriers - time and curriculum constraints - are negatively impacting ICT integration of teachers.

    Read article: Extrinsic and intrinsic barriers in the use of ICT in teaching: A comparative case study in Singapore

  • Heutagogy and mobile social media: Post Web 2.0 pedagogy

    Thomas Cochrane, Laurent Antonczak, Averill Gordon, Helen Sissons, Andrew Withell

    O'Reilly coined the term Web 2.0 seven years ago (O'Reilly, 2005), yet in the past seven years we have seen limited evidence of wide-spread impact of Web 2.0 on traditional higher education pedagogy. Seven years on, the social media landscape has changed and today?s school-leaving students are entering higher education within an increasingly post Web 2.0 society that is predominantly characterised by engagement with mobile social media. We argue that there is a need for higher education to engage with new pedagogies that are appropriate for an emerging post Web 2.0 society. We present a sustainable framework for preparing lecturers to engage with the challenge of post Web 2.0 pedagogies by experiencing the potential of mobile social media within authentic communities of practice.

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  • Exploring the relationship between afforded learning tasks and learning benefits in 3D virtual learning environments

    Barney Dalgarno, Mark J.W. Lee

    In this paper, we build on our previously proposed model of learning in three-dimensional virtual learning environments (3D VLEs) (Dalgarno & Lee, 2010) by exploring the relationship between learning tasks that are afforded by such environments and learning benefits that arise from their use. We draw on data from a questionnaire in which 53 of the 117 higher education respondents described how they used 3D VLEs with their students and indicated the degree to which they believed each of the five potential learning benefits occurred. The results provide strong support for the idea that each of the benefits occurred, but suggest the links between learning tasks and learning benefits are, at this stage, unclear. We postulate some of the possible reasons for these findings and make recommendations for further research, discussing some of the challenges involved in designing studies that seek to relate afforded learning tasks to learning benefits through measurement of actual learning outcomes.

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Showing 1–13 of 132 articles