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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

  • Classroom communication on mobile phones : First experiences with web-based 'clicker' system

    Shun Leung Lam, Kevin Wong, Joseph Mohan, Dongyan Xu, Paul Lam

    Thanks to the advancement in technology, web-based classroom response system is available in leveraging mobile phones to perform function in similar to that of traditional 'clickers. Mobile phones can be used to enrich communication in classroom. Teachers do not need to hand over the clicker devices to students anymore. Individual students can respond to teachers' questions right on their mobile devices. The paper reports two pilot cases in which teachers at two universities in Hong Kong adopted the web-based classroom response system. The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the feasibility of such practice in real classroom situation. However, the results have not been all promising. The success of web-based classroom response system was dependent on the possession of high-end mobile devices and skills to manoeuver these devices.

    Read article: Classroom communication on mobile phones : First experiences with web-based 'clicker' system

  • Negotiating the twin goals of student learning and teacher learning in a professional learning team

    Judy Lai Har Lee, Seng-Chee Tan

    Student learning often forms the key focus of teachers. In professional learning teams (PLTs), teachers engage in collaboration and inquiry with the aim of improving their students' learning. However, teachers who take on the role of facilitating their fellow teachers' learning in PLTs need to simultaneously manage the goals of student learning as well as of teacher learning. This paper discusses issues that teachers face in negotiating the twin goals of student learning and teacher learning in the process of meeting the challenges of technology integration. It argues for a reconceptualisation of professional learning that hinges upon the design of learning tasks offered to teachers in a PLT to help them address issues related to student learning without losing focus of their own professional learning.

    Read article: Negotiating the twin goals of student learning and teacher learning in a professional learning team

  • Working from the evidence of prior art and experience in curriculum database development

    Tim Lever, Richard Gluga, Judy Kay

    There are many potential benefits from systematic documentation of university degree curricula, including facilitation of curriculum review, accreditation reporting and better information for students, lecturers and administrators. The importance of such documentation and its growing complexity has motivated many attempts to create software systems to manage it more effectively. However, there has been little reported on the process of creating such systems and experience of using them. This paper describes the 10 year evolution of the CUSP curriculum database at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Engineering & TT, from a 200 unit, engineering- specific repository, to a multi-faculty platform for 169 degree pathways and over 2000 units of study. The paper contributes to the understanding of challenges of large scale curriculum modeling and curriculum information management and shares lessons learnt in building systems to support these processes and the people involved.

    Read article: Working from the evidence of prior art and experience in curriculum database development

  • Riding the seismic waves: Re-blending teacher education in response to changing demands

    Julie Mackey, Des Breeze, Philippa Buckley, Nicki Dabner, Fiona Gilmore

    Blended learning plays an important role in many tertiary institutions but little has been written about the implementation of blended learning in times of adversity, natural disaster or crisis. This paper describes how, in the wake of the 22 February Canterbury earthquake, five teacher educators responded to crisis-driven changing demands and changing directions. Our narratives describe how blended learning provided students in initial teacher education programmes with some certainty and continuity during a time of civil emergency. The professional learning generated from our experiences provides valuable insights for designing and preparing for blended learning in times of crisis, as well as developing resilient blended learning programmes for the future.

    Read article: Riding the seismic waves: Re-blending teacher education in response to changing demands

  • Evaluating E-portfolios for university learning: Challenges and Opportunities

    Margot McNeill, Andrew Cram

    E-portfolios provide a web-based space where students can demonstrate their development of expertise in a wide range of skills and knowledge, whether in discipline knowledge or graduate capabilities. However, it is yet to be demonstrated how readily these tools can be integrated within the university curriculum. This paper reports on the results of a pilot implementation of the Mahara e-portfolio tool in an Australian university, involving different curriculum contexts across two semesters. Students in the participating units were surveyed on their perspectives about the usability of the e-portfolio tool, the support provided and its effectiveness for their learning. The results suggest that, like all successful curriculum innovations, e-portfolios need to be integrated into the learning and teaching process and students need to understand the benefits as part of successfully engaging with the tools. Amongst the implications is the question of whether the currently available e-portfolio tools are sufficiently sophisticated to integrate seamlessly with existing LMS platforms to meet the changing demands of higher education.

    Read article: Evaluating E-portfolios for university learning: Challenges and Opportunities

  • The surprising truth about how metaphor motivates e- learners

    Lynette Nagel, Seugnet Blignaut, Johannes Cronjé

    Motivation and engagement is hard to maintain in e-learning. Metaphor entertains and motivates participants in virtual environments. After teaching and researching several courses designed around metaphors, we examined its effect on intrinsic motivation in a course based on a virtual soccer tournament. Using a qualitative methodology to investigate students' use of metaphor in communications, the Cognitive Evaluation Theory (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 2001) served as framework to analyse the relationship between the metaphor and intrinsic motivation. We found that there was more copious use of metaphor in the online social discussions, and that it was used for targets of immediate importance and emotional value. Scarce metaphors in reflective journals mapped onto the learning experience. Social constructivist course design required engagement from students that supposed motivation. Unmotivated students were passive, and disrupted the activities of others. Disengaged students can erode motivation of others who become helpless, lose autonomy and feel incompetent.

    Read article: The surprising truth about how metaphor motivates e- learners

  • Learner-generated content as a pedagogical change agent

    Vickel Narayan

    While the affordance of Web 2.0 tools in enhancing learning and teaching is well documented, effective use of these tools still eludes most practitioners. New technologies are simply used to recreate the hierarchical structure present within the four walls of the classroom and that signifies power and control online. The apparent ease at which technology is able to situate itself with the old and contemporary pedagogical practices is perhaps its biggest weakness and hinders effective use in learning and teaching. The paper reports on the findings from six projects where learner generated content was made explicit in course outcome. These projects where carried out between year 2010 and 2011 (some projects are still on-going) in the faculty of Technology and Built Environment (TBE) and Te Puna Ako at Unitec New Zealand and involved students and staff from various courses ranging from levels 2 to 7. An overview of the six projects and the Web 2.0 tools used in the courses is given and the implications of making learner generated content an explicit course outcome is discussed.

    Read article: Learner-generated content as a pedagogical change agent

  • Equipping Lecturers for the iRevolution

    James Oldfield, Thomas Cochrane

    In this paper we explore several critical factors influencing educational technology adoption including teaching staff buy-in and the critical nature of lecturer professional development within educational technology adoption projects (Kukulska-Hulme & Pettit, 2007, 2008; Learning and Skills Network, 2009; Moser, 2007). The paper outlines and critiques the methods used to achieve this staff buy-in as the second phase of a larger longitudinal eLearning and mLearning participatory action research project (Cochrane, 2010). The overall project makes use of social constructivism as the underlying pedagogical theory driving and informing the changes taking place. A community of practice (COP) model (Wenger, 1998; Wenger, White, & Smith, 2009) has been developed as a means of guiding and supporting lecturers as they develop their eLearning skills together. Artifacts created through this process (boundary objects) were then used to bring the lurkers into the core group from legitimate peripheral participation into full participation within the project's supporting COP.

    Read article: Equipping Lecturers for the iRevolution

  • Academic analytics in a medical curriculum: Enabling educational excellence

    Martin Olmos, Linda Corrin

    The developing field of academic analytics seeks to turn data from educational systems into actionable intelligence for the improvement of teaching and learning. This paper reports on the implementation of analytics in a new medical school with an integrated curriculum and clinical focus. Analytics addressed two challenges in the curriculum: providing evidence of appropriate curriculum coverage and assessing student engagement and equity while on clinical placement. The paper describes the tools and approaches used, and it outlines the lessons learnt. These lessons include the risk of a simplistic use of visualisations, their potential to generate important questions, the value of a flexible approach to tool selection, the need for relevant skills, and the importance of keeping the audience central. Although there is much further potential for the school to realise, academic analytics have already been a critical enabler of educational excellence.

    Read article: Academic analytics in a medical curriculum: Enabling educational excellence

  • Working collaboratively in a group assignment using a Mediawiki for an architecture and construction management undergraduate unit

    Linda Osman-Schlegel, Gail Fluker, Sin Tie Cheng

    This paper describes an architecture and construction management unit which implements Mediawiki in teaching and learning. The main objective of using the Mediawiki is to engage students to work collaboratively online in a group assignment. It also aims to further develop student information technology skills and thus enhance their learning experience. One of the learning objectives of the unit is to develop the ability to communicate the results of student research in construction technology using appropriate digital media from which Mediawiki was chosen. This paper outlines the challenges and issues faced in the implementation of Mediawiki as a collaborative tool in a group assignment of an architecture and construction management unit. It also discusses how academic staff and students were supported through the process of learning to use the Mediawiki. Finally, potential future directions of using Mediawiki in teaching and learning are explored based on students' comments and feedback.

    Read article: Working collaboratively in a group assignment using a Mediawiki for an architecture and construction management undergraduate unit

  • An institutional study of the influence of 'onlineness' on student evaluation of teaching in a dual mode Australian university

    Stuart Palmer

    Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is now commonplace in many universities internationally. The most common criticism of SET practices is that they are influenced by a number of non- teaching-related factors. More recently, there has been dramatic growth in online education internationally, but only limited research on the use of SET to evaluate online teaching. This paper presents a large-scale and detailed investigation, using the institutional SET data from an Australian university with a significant offering of wholly online units, and whose institutional SET instrument contains items relating to student perceptions of online technologies in teaching and learning. The relationship between educational technology and SET is not neutral. The mean ratings for the 'online' aspects of SET are influenced by factors in the wider teaching and learning environment, and the overall perception of teaching quality is influenced by whether a unit is offered in wholly online mode or not.

    Read article: An institutional study of the influence of 'onlineness' on student evaluation of teaching in a dual mode Australian university

  • Tutor Accessibility Support Kit (TASK): A Suite of Staff Development Resources for Inclusive Online Learning Design

    George Papadopoulos, Elaine Pearson, Steve Green

    Higher Education institutions around the world have seen a significant increase in the number of students with disabilities and it is evident that the needs of these students should be addressed. The use of accessible e-learning can be an enabling experience for disabled students, however, the development of inclusive e- resources in Higher Education is convoluted and poses significant challenges to educators, as developers of their own online materials, and to staff developers, who are responsible for the provision of on-going and valuable support to academics. This paper describes the results of an evaluation that explored the potential of TASK (Tutor Accessibility Support Kit) as a training and support tool for academics with little or no previous knowledge in developing accessible online learning materials, either as part of a Continuing Professional Development course or as an online standalone tool.

    Read article: Tutor Accessibility Support Kit (TASK): A Suite of Staff Development Resources for Inclusive Online Learning Design

  • Learning analytics and study behaviour: A pilot study

    Rob Phillips, Dorit Maor, Wendy Cumming-Potvin, Pauline Roberts, Jan Herrington, Greg Preston, Elizabeth Moore, Laura Perry

    The analysis of student access to learning management systems and web-based lecture capture systems is a growing area of interest for teachers in higher education wishing to improve the student learning experience. The data trails left by students as they engage in these environments can be accessed and analysed for meaning. This paper describes a study conducted as part of a wider multi-university study into student study behaviour. It offers a detailed snapshot of four students whose access to Lectopia recordings were tracked and analysed, and who were subsequently interviewed to confirm or disconfirm assumptions made about their study methods from the analysis. The data revealed that a surface analysis using learning analytics was largely insufficient to determine student study characteristics, but qualitative data provided rich information to supplement the analysis. Suggestions are made for further research into how this emerging methodology can be further developed and strengthened.

    Read article: Learning analytics and study behaviour: A pilot study

Showing 40–52 of 147 articles