2010: ASCILITE 2010 Conference Proceedings: Curriculum, technology & transformation for an unknown future

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

• Graphical representations and transfer of ideas between multi-draft pre-writing stages

  Chien-Ching Lee, Seng-Chee Tan

  In this study, 36 engineering students who were taking a course on effective communication used graphic organizers to prepare their draft for a writing task. This was followed by a review by peers and the teacher. As students often have difficulties constructing knowledge across representations, this study aims to uncover the factors that influence students’ cognitive decision-making when transferring information between pre-writing stages. The findings show that the factors were: the level of elaboration of the main ideas, the link between the writing goal of each pre-writing stage, and the level of importance of the main ideas. Furthermore, the redundant information in the pre-writing stages helped rather than hindered them from transferring ideas between the pre-writing stages. In addition, the students were more ready to accept feedback from the teacher than their peers. These findings highlight the importance of factoring in the function of the information in the representations in instructional design using multiple representations.

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• Facilitating change: Tablet PC trials across two distance education focused universities

  Birgit Loch, Wendy Fisher

  This paper reports on initial findings in comparing two distance universities' approaches to trialling tablet technology to enhance communication between instructors and students. There were different reasons for initiating the trials and different approaches to each of the trials, but there were also some striking similarities. For instance both trials were led from the bottom up, however they were each conducted with no knowledge of the other. Funding for each of these trials was resourced from a university learning and teaching grant/fellowship and both projects used an action research approach. The emphasis for both trials was on pedagogical and technological staff development facilitated and administered through each project leader. The paper gives an overview of how the trials were conducted, what did and did not succeed and what could be improved. Longer lasting outcomes that have been achieved through these projects are described. This comparison is meant to guide and inform change agents and identify good practice in the management of technology trials.

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• Key elements of the tutorial support management model

  Grace Lynch, Philip Paasuke

  In response to an exponential growth in enrolments the Tutorial Support Management (TSM) model has been adopted by Open Universities Australia (OUA) after a two-year project on the provision of online tutor support in first year online undergraduate units. The essential focus of the TSM model was the development of a systemic approach to the provision of online tutorial support for high enrolment units. Findings from this project indicate that the TSM model has provided benefits in terms of improved student retention, performance, and satisfaction in addition to increased return and reenrolment rates. This paper outlines the key elements of the TSM model and offers comments on various issues that need to be taken into account in adopting this model.

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• Virtual tutor support using SMARTHINKING: Preliminary findings

  Jennifer McDonell, Mitchell Parkes, Belinda Tynan

  The University of New England (UNE) has been using a virtual tutoring service called SMARTHINKING since 2007. UNE explored the use of a "virtual tutor service" to support distance education students in their academic development; to reduce attrition; and to provide academic support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to all students with access to a computer irrespective of geographical location. A cascading selection of units across different disciplinary areas and cohorts of students were targeted for the virtual tutorial support service over 6 semesters to provide rich data. A survey consisting of 20 questions was developed and implemented at the end of each teaching period. Preliminary analysis of data indicates that SMARTHINKING appears to be making a difference to student learning outcomes. However, while uptake tends to be low in all cohorts but where students select to use the service they are positive about its effects.

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• Animated storytelling about “My Special Place” to represent non-Aboriginal preservice teachers’ awareness of “relatedness to country”

  Anthony McKnight, Garry Hoban, Wendy Nielsen

  In this study, a group (N=15) of final year non-Aboriginal preservice teachers participated in an elective subject that aimed to raise their awareness about Aboriginal ways of knowing. A vital aspect of the course was developing the preservice teachers‘ awareness of 'relatedness to country' which is a key belief for Aboriginal people. The non-Aboriginal preservice teachers selected their own special place and then experienced Aboriginal ways of knowing throughout the course and visited local Aboriginal sites to hear and listen to stories shared by an Aboriginal Elder. At the end of the subject, the preservice teachers created their own animated story about their special place. The animation approach used is called 'Slowmation' (abbreviated from 'Slow Animation') which is a narrated stop-motion animation that is played slowly, at 2 photos/second, to tell a story. It is a simplified way for preservice teachers to make animations that integrates aspects of claymation, digital storytelling and object animation. To research this approach the preservice teachers were interviewed at the beginning and end of the course as well as submitting their animation for assessment. Data collected revealed that all the preservice teachers were able to make an animated story explaining their relationship to their 'special place‘ and most developed a deeper understanding of what a relational approach to country means. Getting the preservice teachers to make animated stories helped them to reflect upon their special place and was a creative way to develop their awareness of cultural diversity especially about Aboriginal ways of knowing.

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• Ponderers, Sloggers, Slackers and more: Understanding the profiles of student bloggers to help promote academic self-regulation

  Mark McMahon

  Self-regulated learning is the fusion of skill and will. Students who can regulate their learning show a high level of self-awareness, are motivated and are able to adapt their approaches to the task at hand. Blogging may be seen as one approach to enhancing self-regulation but for that to take place, an understanding of how self-regulation is manifest in blogs must be developed. This paper identifies a range of blogger ‘profiles’ and offers suggestions as to how the processes in self-regulation can be developed through blogging as a learning activity.

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• Technologies to transform assessment: A study of learning outcomes, assessment and technology use in an Australian university

  Margot McNeill, Maree Gosper, John Hedberg

  Emerging Web 2.0 technologies have frequently been touted as having the potential to transform learning and assessment, with their capacity to capture the processes and not just products of collaboration and creativity. While the literature is optimistic, questions emerge about the impact these tools have had on academic practice and the extent to which they have been able to rise to this challenge of changing assessment strategies and processes in universities. This paper reports the findings from a survey of unit convenors in an Australian university, which explored how technologies were used to support assessment. The results suggest that while uptake of technologies for assessment may slowly be rising, the uses are frequently limited to assessing students? ability to understand or apply concepts or procedures. The potential of technologies to support assessment of the all-important higher order learning outcomes such as evaluation, creation and metacognition is still largely left untapped. For many of the technologies, the results suggest that rather than transformative tools, their uses are predominantly limited to perpetuating traditional practices.

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• Minimising the distance, maximising the learning: Successful selection and implementation of an online virtual whiteboard for tutorial sessions

  Lee Mowbray, Thomas Kerr, Jenny Donald

  Emerging online technologies are increasingly being evaluated to meet the needs of the expanding group of students who wish to balance education with their career and family commitments. This paper describes the collaboration between Educational Developers at Macquarie University Learning and Teaching Centre and the Department of Biological Sciences, to research effective new technologies to facilitate an improved learning environment for Distance Ed students. We detail the process, from the needs analysis and extensive research of possible solutions, to the ensuing procedure of trialling, demonstration, implementation, training and support. The criteria and steps in testing and trialling the nine possible solutions are described, in addition to the subsequent implementation process of the final solution, Scribblar, a free Web 2.0 online interactive whiteboard.

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• New beginnings: Facilitating effective learning through the use of Web 2.0 tools

  Vickel Narayan, Lee Baglow

  Web 2.0 is driving change both in the mainstream society and education. Web 2.0 enhances the experience by allowing users not to only download pre-packaged content but by empowering them to become active contributors and publishers. Web 2.0 affordances such as the ability to network, communicate, collaborate, co-create and aggregate knowledge offer considerable opportunities for learning and teaching. The growth of Web 2.0 technology and rising easiness to collaborate, communicate and co-create provides an opportunity to move away from a transmission method of teaching to one that empowers learners to learn collaboratively through interaction with peers. Trade education is perceived by many as “learning the skills”. In this era of fast changing technology, learning the skills is not enough. The need to continually up-skill and the ability to learn on your won is fast becoming a necessity to deliver expected outcomes. The Certificate in Mechanical Automotive Engineering (CAME) is a foundation level mechanical course that in the past was mainly geared towards "teaching the skills" and also suffered from poor student retention and success rate. This paper explores an example of how Web 2.0 tools were implemented in the curriculum to address these problems: student retention and success and gearing students towards becoming independent learners. Phase 1 of the proposed 3-phase scaffolded student-centred learning model is implemented in the course. The design and use of chosen Web 2.0 tools for use in the course is described. An overview of the outcome from semester 1 of 2-semester research is discussed. Data for the research was collected using various methods: the administration of post semester survey (student), student and staff blog, data gathered from discussions and reflections in the community of practice that was established with students and staff and an evaluation of student results at the end of the first semester.

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• The ‘strategic learner’ goes digital: Web 2.0 and the implications of assessment when transferring from distance education to online learning

  Christopher Naughton, John Roder, Juliette Smeed

  With the rapid move by many Higher Education Institutions to an online mode of teaching, the changes in pedagogy sometimes result in new means of communication with students. Whereas previously in a classroom setting, or paper-based distance mode, students may have been encouraged to develop their thinking from a study guide, with the introduction of online learning new opportunities have arisen for students to engage in learning both with a text and in dialogue with other students. The chance to share knowledge, develop ideas and formulate new thinking has been a feature of many initiatives in online engagement. While some students may wholeheartedly engage in such interactive learning, others are less inclined and remain more detached in their learning. This group were identified in a study of a cohort of students undertaking an online learning course at a private tertiary college in New Zealand. This paper outlines the response of students who resisted the opportunity to engage in a more interactive approach to their online studies.

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• Using an educational game to learn : Are there any gender differences between pre-service teachers?

  Eugenia M. W. Ng

  This article discusses an exploratory study that aimed to examine the gender differences between female and male student teachers who played an educational game to learn programming concepts. In this study, we adopted a self-made educational game called “Simulator”. Eighteen females and fifteen males have finished playing a level of the Simulator. Female participants spent more time in the Simulator but their scores were lower. The findings call for larger and longer research studies and perhaps a re-design of the Simulator to make it more appealing to females when using an educational game to learn programming.

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• Shades of Grey: Playing games in the classroom to enhance student learning

  James D. Oldfield, Andrew Slessor

  Although the use of games in education is not new, the recent enhancements to game functionality through technology advancements have led to opportunities for significant changes to teaching and learning delivery methods and approaches. Shades of Grey is a technology-driven educational game designed to make learning fun whilst also encouraging collaboration between students and interaction with the instructor. The game makes use of web and mobile technologies to test student comprehension of ethical concepts in a team environment. This paper reports on a research project that interrogated the effectiveness and impact of the Shades of Grey game on a group of students in an Advanced Management Accounting course. The project tested the students’ understanding of core course concepts before playing the game, and again afterwards. Students’ perceptions of the game were also tested in order to find out whether or not they felt it encouraged them to learn and added benefit to the course. The Shades of Grey game received very possitive feedback from students who enjoyed the experience, felt they learned from it, and wanted to see games used more frequently in their courses. This project's findings have confirmed that further investment in the game's development will be highly worthwhile; importantly, the game can be repurposed to work in many different courses in different environments and discipline areas, making it a valuable and highly flexible teaching resource.

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• Constructionist principles in online teacher professional development: Robotics and hands-on activities in the Classroom

  Nathaniel Ostashewski, Susan Moisey, Doug Reid

  This report explores the first iteration of a teacher professional development Courselet grounded in constructionist theory and activities. A design-based research approach guided this continuing examination of online teacher professional development (oTPD) activities within an educator social networking site. The topic of the oTPD was “Robotics and Hands-on Learning in the Classroom” for teachers interested in integrating constructionist LEGO robotics-based pedagogies. The Courselet engaged teachers in just- in-time, ongoing TPD utilizing Web 2.0 tools. Key findings of the first delivery of the oTPD Courselet point to flexible access, sharing of resources, teacher discussions, and support for constructionist pedagogical activities as the PD value for participants. Findings support the potential for an ongoing online community of practice around classroom robotics. The approach taken in this oTPD Courselet continues to inform a model of oTPD delivery within a social networking enabled environment. Further research is needed to determine the transfer of oTPD to classroom practice.

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