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2011: ASCILITE 2011 Conference Proceedings: Changing Demands, Changing Directions.

 

The proceedings of the 2011 ASCILITE Conference

G. Williams, P. Statham, N. Brown & B. Cleland (Eds.), Changing Demands, Changing Directions. Proceedings ASCILITE Hobart 2011

Wrest Point, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

December 4-7, 2011

ASCILITE2011 Conference Website - https://ascilite.org/conferences/hobart11/index.htm

Published: 8 December 2011

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

  • Age-related differences in ICT access and confidence among pre-service teachers

    Peter R. Albion, Romina Jamieson-Proctor, Glenn Finger

    The Australian Government's Digital Education Revolution is directed at school education but, because teacher preparation is a significant factor in its success, there are implications for teacher education in Australian higher education. A national project, Teaching Teachers for the Future, has been funded to support change in teacher preparation programs based on the construct of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), which describes teachers' complex combination of knowledge of content, pedagogy, and technology. Knowledge of information and communication technology is a necessary, but not sufficient, foundation for TPACK. This paper presents data about ICT access and confidence reported by teacher education students in a regional university. Key findings included that teacher candidates had access to and confidence for using common forms of ICT but more limited access to and confidence for using less common forms, and that there were few significant differences in ICT access and confidence according to age.

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  • An Investigation into the Learning Styles and Self- Regulated Learning Strategies for Computer Science Students

    Ali Alharbi, David Paul, Frans Henskens, Michael Hannaford

    Student-centred educational paradigms place a high level of responsibility on learners to control and self-regulate their personal learning processes. In these new educational paradigms, it is essential to understand students' preferences and the self-regulated learning strategies they use in order to enhance the learning process. This paper examines the different learning styles and self- regulated learning strategies used by students in a core computer science course. An Index of Learning Styles and a Self-Regulated Learning Strategies Questionnaire were administered to second year students studying programming languages concepts and paradigms. Results show that aspects of students' preferred learning styles had a significant impact on academic performance in the midterm examination. Further, consideration of the self-regulated learning strategies used by students provides evidence that metacognitive strategies were the least popular strategies among students. This suggests that students are not aware of important self-regulated learning strategies and may benefit from educational interventions focusing on these strategies. These results have implications for future teaching of the course, and are being used to guide the development of an online collaborative learning objects repository that aims to improve self-directed student learning.

    Read article: An Investigation into the Learning Styles and Self- Regulated Learning Strategies for Computer Science Students

  • The potential role of collaborative learning in enhancing e-learning systems: Evidence from Saudi Arabia

    Salem Alkhalaf, Jeremy Nguyen, Anne Nguyen, Steve Drew

    Despite the considerable potential for e-learning to help bring about improved learning outcomes, particularly for female students and students who need to rely on distance learning, feedback from current users of e-learning systems in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) suggests a relatively low level of satisfaction. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach to investigate the underlying reasons for this situation. The results indicate that students are not unhappy with the information technology infrastructure or with other technical aspects. However, many students report a low level of interaction between them and their fellow students. When such interactions do occur, an overwhelming majority of students indicate that they find such interactions. Together, these findings suggest that greater student interaction, which could be fostered through the use of collaborative learning, is likely to be both popular with students and beneficial to their learning outcomes.

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  • The creative graduate: Cultivating and assessing creativity with eportfolios

    Belinda Allen, Kathryn Coleman

    Changing demands for graduate capabilities lead to changing directions for undergraduate assessment. 'Creativity' is a widely promoted graduate capability that relates to many others, such as independent learning and innovative problem-solving. Assessment practices need to become more focused on the evaluation of generic capabilities, additional to assessment of discipline- specific knowledge. This has implications for the content, design and modes of assessment. Assessment as learning promotes an approach in which the learning activity and assessment task are one and the same, and authentic assessment design incorporating group work, problem-based, online and portfolio assessment enable the development of generic capabilities to be embedded in the discipline. The paper explores creativity as a graduate capability, the creative potential of digital media, and how changing directions in assessment practice could support the assessment of creativity, with a focus on using eportfolios in assessment.

    Read article: The creative graduate: Cultivating and assessing creativity with eportfolios

  • Affective Encounters and Spatial Engagements: Pedagogies of Desire in e-Learning

    Reem Al-Mahmood

    How do students engage in e-learning environments? What are the affective encounters and spatial engagements of students in these environments? These questions are considered by viewing affectivity and spatial engagements in terms of hybridity of the subject-object (human- material) embrace to consider not only people but also the vitality of objects and their materiality. Two poststructuralist transdisciplinary practice-focused frameworks are used: 1) the material semiotic lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005; Law, 2008a, 2008b) which accents material agency, and 2) Non-Representational Theory (Thrift 2008) which draws on Deleuzean notions (Deleuze & Guattari 1988) to consider affectivity as "charged" (Navaro-Yashin, 2009) intensities. This paper draws on student data from a larger ethnographic study of four fully online postgraduate subjects at an Australian university to trace participant e-learning experiences. By exploring the salience of student affective encounters and spatial engagements through three contrasting vignettes, I open up questions to address 'pedagogies of desire' (Zembylas, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c) to explore how subjectivities and desires are (per)formed in a 'more than human way' and how places of (e-)learning are "affectively charged" (Leander, Phillips & Taylor, 2010, p. 336, original emphasis). These insights can open up new ways to (re)think e-learning design and pedagogy, in theory and in practice.

    Read article: Affective Encounters and Spatial Engagements: Pedagogies of Desire in e-Learning

  • ICT-assisted multi-campus teaching: Principles and practice to impact equity of experience for students

    Alan Anderson, Elizabeth Date-Huxtable

    Given the range of ICT-assisted delivery options available today, the uninitiated might assume that teaching across multiple campuses no longer presents any significant challenges. Further, it could be argued that terms such as multi-campus and distance teaching have less relevance now that ICT enables flexible learning beyond the time and spatial confines of the physical campus. In fact, research literature indicates that multi-campus teaching continues to present some unique pedagogical, technical, learning support and administrative challenges. Based on a search of Australian University Web sites, this paper examines principles, practices and challenges for ICT- assisted teaching and learning at multi-campus institutions, at the same time noting a lack of comprehensive online resources that address ICT-assisted multi-campus teaching as a distinct category of flexible learning.

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  • The iLessonPlan : A lesson planning tool for the 21st century

    Alages Andre

    Learning technologies increasingly play a key role in enhancing teaching, learning and assessment. However, it is common practice for English Language trainee teachers to use hard and or soft copies of sample lesson plans presented in a table or list format in the classroom and for feedback. This is the conventional approach used to plan lessons. This approach compounds the complex and complicated process involved in planning ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) lessons. Also the approach does not take advantage of new learning theories and new learning technologies. This paper reports the findings of an ongoing project where a lesson planning tool was designed and developed to replace the conventional approach. This tool, the iLessonPlan, is a prototype interactive online lesson planning tool. In this paper, the design of the iLessonPlan is described, a prototype version is demonstrated and feedback on the use of the tool is presented.

    Read article: The iLessonPlan : A lesson planning tool for the 21st century

  • Collaboration, community, identity: Engaged e-learning and e-teaching in an online writing course

    Martin Andrew, Josie Arnold

    This paper presents a narrative enquiry of the use of learning technologies and communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) in creating and delivering the online Master of Arts (Writing) at Swinburne University of Technology. We consider the research question of how we have come to understand and practice elements of a social constructivist pedagogy involving engaged, learner- centred peer and community support both as a creative team and as e-moderators. We consider, too, that our pedagogy is informed by poststructural understandings of learner identities as invested and unfixed (Weedon, 1997). This study utilizes the self as data by drawing on narratives of course developers and lecturers collaborating to create unique materials. While our methodology utilises elements of autoethonography (Chang, 2008), it also involves analyzing themes and narrative configurations in stories (Polkinghorne, 1995), specifically those of tutors and students. Our narrative exemplifies and proposes strategies for writing e-curriculum for web 2.0; for scaffolding e-learning, and for creating and maintaining communities of invested, engaged learners. Simultaneously we add nuances to the scholarly conversation about e-learning communities, e-curriculum development and subjective academic narrative methodology.

    Read article: Collaboration, community, identity: Engaged e-learning and e-teaching in an online writing course

  • Changing student learning preferences: What does this mean for the future of universities?

    Trish Andrews, Belinda Tynan

    Learner preferences appear to be changing and there is some evidence that students are seeking a different kind of learning experience than currently commonly available. This paper provides a brief discussion of changing student learning preferences and suggests that these are being driven by the accessibility and characteristics of available and emerging technologies, rather than by technological determinism. The paper also suggests that, in many ways, the majority of higher education institutions are ill-prepared for these changes and that a gap is emerging between student expectations and student experience. It is proposed that students are looking for more connected and mobile learning opportunities and that 'loose networks' are playing an increasingly important role in supporting learning. The paper discusses the implications these changes have for institutions and suggests that while universities face challenges they also have choices.

    Read article: Changing student learning preferences: What does this mean for the future of universities?

  • iWant does not equal iWill: Correlates of mobile learning with iPads, e-textbooks, BlackBoard Mobile Learn and a blended learning experience

    Jeffrey Brand, Shelley Kinash, Trishita Mathew, Ron Kordyban

    This research tested the efficacy of a blended learning iteration with iPad tablet computers, an e- textbook and Blackboard's Mobile Learn application connected with a learning management system (LMS). Mobile learning was embedded into the pedagogical design of an undergraduate subject run in two semesters with 135 students. Using design-based research (DBR), an empirical investigation examined four variables including: iPad use; mobile technology use; attitude, including the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) scale; and academic performance. Quantitative analysis with PASW Statistics included descriptive, scaling, correlations, partial correlations and ANCOVAs. Results suggested that students were positive about mobile learning, but were unconvinced that it made a difference to their learning. Performance variables demonstrated that age and self-managed learning attitudes were important covariates with academic success, and mobile learning per se was important but not independent from curriculum design and student engagement.

    Read article: iWant does not equal iWill: Correlates of mobile learning with iPads, e-textbooks, BlackBoard Mobile Learn and a blended learning experience

  • Engaging in online postgraduate education as means of professional learning

    Tania Broadley

    With enrolments in higher education becoming a competitive market, through the removal of caps in 2012, the equitable access to postgraduate education is raised. Postgraduate education, provided through higher education institutions, is an important aspect of career development for professionals. Professionals working outside of the metropolitan area are increasingly seeking postgraduate education opportunities that will be delivered online, at a distance. In this research study, data collected from the teaching profession, has culminated in a model that will ultimately improve access to professional learning. This research paper aims to highlight the important role that higher education providers play in the delivery of postgraduate education to professionals working in regional and remote areas of Australia. Although this paper focuses on the realm of education, the model of connectedness, where synchronous and asynchronous technologies are used, can be adapted and applied to any profession that requires equitable access to professional learning.

    Read article: Engaging in online postgraduate education as means of professional learning

  • Contextual Course Design with Omnispective Analysis and Reasoning

    Srinivas Chemboli, Clive Boughton

    In this paper, we present a novel approach to contextualize course design by the application of the Omnispective Analysis and Reasoning (OAR) framework to map the goals and intent of a course to its design and delivery. Effective design and delivery of courses requires alignment between planned learning activities and learning outcomes. However, it is generally not trivial to translate learning outcomes into course design, particularly so when using a Learning Management System (LMS). This is further compounded by the differences between the language of teaching theory and that used by the LMS. Thus, there is a need to effectively capture the rationale for design decisions in a course and map them to desired outcomes. We illustrate the application of the OAR framework with a process for translating a learning objective into course design using the Moodle LMS.

    Read article: Contextual Course Design with Omnispective Analysis and Reasoning

  • mLearning: Why? What? Where? How?

    Thomas Cochrane

    This paper explores the state of play of mlearning in education. Mlearning bridges pedagogically designed learning contexts, enables learner generated contexts, and content, while providing personalization and ubiquitous social connectedness. The researcher makes a case for the impact of mlearning to act as a catalyst for transforming pedagogy informed by the implementation of over 30 mlearning projects, and reflects upon example implementations of mlearning within a variety of contexts.

    Read article: mLearning: Why? What? Where? How?

Showing 1–13 of 147 articles