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2008: ASCILITE 2008 Conference Proceedings

 

 

 

The proceedings of the 2008 ASCILITE Conference.

R. J. Atkinson, & C. McBeath (Eds.) (2008),

Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? 

Proceedings ASCILITE 2008. Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

Published: 25 November 2008

ASCILITE Conference - Full Papers

  • Enabling authentic cross-disciplinary learning through a scaffolded assignment in a blended environment

    Anne Abraham, Hazel Jones

    This paper reports on the development of a scaffolded learning assignment with blended components in a cross-disciplinary setting. The assignment has been developed in a socio- cultural context, based on a Vygotskian approach and this paper details the design and development of the assignment. The five stages of the assignment have been carefully scaffolded and include elements of individual and group tasks, finishing with an individual reflection on the process. Formative assessment and associated feedback are important elements of the scaffolding and suggestions for further applications for the learning design of the assignment are suggested.

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  • Spatialities and online teaching: To, from and beyond the academy

    Reem Al-Mahmood

    “Hello! Is anyone out there?” might be the echo of many an online lecturer, but perhaps a louder echo might be in the question “Hello! Where are you in the educational landscape?” For our locations and spatialities are inevitably entangled with who we are and who we might become. We are always emplaced (Malpas, 1999), and so in the changing pedagogical spaces of academe, I argue that spatialities are inextricably linked with identity performances and teaching practices - these configure and are configured by each other. In the postmodern university, online spaces are changing traditional academic life. As Lefebvre puts it “to change life is to change space; to change space is to change life” (Merrifield, 2000: 173). This paper explores transformations in online teaching in terms of identity, spatiality and online teaching practices in the everyday experiences of online lecturers using the socio-material lens of Actor-Network-Theory. Drawing from a larger qualitative ethnographic study within an Australian university, the experiences of 4 online lecturers are discussed in terms of (re)configurations of their identities, teaching practices and spaces/places (physical and online), as well as their evolving online teaching metaphors; relating to the conference themes of: “What are the changing relationships between people, the virtual and the physical, and objects in the educational technology landscape?”; and “What does it mean to be an online scholar in the educational technology landscape – who, what, when, where, how and why?” (ascilite, 2008). It is concluded that these conceptual and empirical insights can enrich our understanding of online teaching transformations in terms of identity and spatiality in shifting pedagogical landscapes – to, from and beyond the traditional places of the academy.

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  • Communities in practice: A community dimension for the UNSW Learning & Teaching Exchange

    Belinda Allen, Giedre Kligyte, Mike Bogle, Rosalyn Pursey

    An online learning and teaching exchange, integrating a range of communities of practice with a showcase of good practice, and the tools to develop sound teaching approaches - it sounds a fine venture, but what should it encompass? How will it be framed and contextualised? How will it be managed? And – most importantly – whom is it for, and how will it engage users in a meaningful way, embedded into the context of their current practice? This is not an untrodden path, there are numerous examples of exchanges, repositories and communities developed on a grander scale than the one planned for UNSW, most recently the ALTC (formerly Carrick) Exchange, designed and developed under the auspices of ascilite. The designers of the UNSW Learning & Teaching Exchange have learned from and built on these developments, with an intention to eventually complement those wider initiatives. Our Exchange will provide an environment for UNSW academics to share their learning and teaching practice and develop their academic career in a local context, aiming to integrate local activities with wider initiatives in learning and teaching research and practice nationally and internationally. This paper draws on the literature on communities of practice and the scholarship of teaching and learning, and reviews some recent online developments in higher education that informed the planning of the UNSW Learning & Teaching Exchange.

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  • Paperless assignments: Moving forward or marking time?

    Sandra Barker, Brenton Fiedler, Philip Johnson

    The advent of technology in the 1990s was seen as having the potential to revolutionise electronic management of student assignments. While there were advantages and disadvantages, the potential was seen as a necessary part of the future of this aspect of academia. A number of studies (including Dalgarno et al in 2006) identified issues that supported positive aspects of electronic assignment management but consistently identified drawbacks, suggesting that the maximum achievable potential for these processes may have been reached. To confirm the perception that the technology and process are indeed ‘marking time’ a further study was undertaken at the University of South Australia (UniSA). This paper deals with the study of online receipt, assessment and feedback of assessment utilizing UniSA technology referred to as AssignIT. The study identified that students prefer a paperless approach to marking however there are concerns with the nature, timing and quality of feedback. Staff have not embraced all of the potential elements of electronic management of assignments, identified Occupational Health Safety and Welfare issues, and tended to drift back to traditional manual marking processes through a lack of understanding or confidence in their ability to properly use the technology.

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  • Measuring the teaching presence of online faculty in a blended program for entrepreneurs

    Kanishka Bedi

    Blended programs have gained immense popularity due to the synergy derived out of online and face-to-face pedagogies. However, in blended programs, at times students tend to compare the utility and value of the online component vis-à-vis face-to-face component. This comparison may escalate to the teaching presence of faculty especially if the professors facilitating the online and face-to-face components happen to be two different individuals. This study reports such an issue faced in a blended program for entrepreneurs and family businesses, where the students complained about less than expected teaching presence of the faculty on the online asynchronous discussion boards (DBs). The taxonomy proposed by Blignaut & Trollip (2003) was utilised by including two more dimensions namely, the DB topics and length of the faculty postings to measure the teaching presence in four completed courses of the program. The findings uncovered various dimensions of the teaching presence including an over emphasis of the faculty on informative postings while neglecting the corrective postings, lack of comprehensiveness and a declining trend in the number of faculty postings, thus impacting the student engagement on the online DBs. The utility of this simple yet effective method of measuring the teaching presence can be extended beyond the completed classes to the ongoing classes for aiding the faculty in conducting mid-course corrections to improve student engagement.

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  • E-teachers collaborating: Process based professional development for e-teaching

    Stephen Bright

    This paper is the final report on this research project as required by the ASCILITE research grant conditions and outlines the research project background, rationale and methodology, and discusses results and conclusions. The project initiated the process of collegial development of a theoretically informed framework which enabled lecturers to retrospectively analyse what they did to create an effective online teacher presence and thereby facilitate a more productive online learning environment for their students. The project involved a pilot group of tertiary e-teachers interacting with an established theoretical framework - seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education (Chickering and Gamson, 1987). They developed, by a consensus process, using a mixture of face-to-face interaction and an online wiki, an extended version of this framework to analyse online interactions for evidence of their teacher presence. Working as a collegial group, lecturers then formulated a process which facilitated peer analysis and review of this data to identify both strengths and areas for further professional learning. Lecturers were invited to self-review an online course which contained examples of online interaction – these were discussed in triads with two other colleagues acting as peer reviewer and interviewer. Several themes emerged from the project conclusions – the framework developed had much in common with other existing evaluative frameworks, staff involved generally reported the process as a positive one, with greater commitment and ownership because of the collegial development, and one of the difficulties participants encountered was the time commitment required.

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  • Tools for survival in a changing educational technology environment

    Janet Buchan

    This conference provides a unique opportunity to capture a snapshot in time of where we are in the educational technology landscape. Landscape denotes static, a snapshot in time. However, the educational technology environment is dynamic and constantly changing. While at times the technological change and demands for technological change can be overwhelming, change needs to become an accepted, integral and well managed part of our educational environment. Concepts presented here have been taken from the environment management discipline and are used as metaphors for understanding change and transformations in technology enhanced learning environments. The strong environmental metaphor and associated language has been deliberately chosen because it helps us to focus on our key role as educators which is to create the best possible learning environment for our students. This paper introduces a social ecological systems analysis approach to understanding changes in organisations and the impact of outside factors on our learning environment. The Adaptive Cycle Framework is introduced as a predictive tool for understanding changes and transformations in our educational technology environment, and to thus determine a pathway to maximise opportunities afforded by change. This paper draws on an ongoing PhD study in which the focus is on managing change in technology enhanced learning environments. The Adaptive Cycle Framework is illustrated within the context of a case study of a regional university’s changing educational technology environment as a means to better manage for the long term.

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  • The transformative potential of the DiAL-e framework: Crossing boundaries, pushing frontiers

    Kevin Burden, Simon Atkinson

    This paper investigates the responses and impact upon a group of adult learners (educators) to a novel framework for the use of digital artefacts in tertiary education settings (the Digital Artefacts for Learner Engagement Framework: DiAL-e). The framework was developed as part of a UK project, sponsored through the Joint Information Services Committee (JISC), to encourage academics and other educators to adopt digital artefacts (in this case video) as part of their teaching, learning and research strategies. Eighty academics were involved in a series of focus groups to pilot the framework during 2006-2007, and the data from these workshops (recorded in video format) is analysed using Mezirow’s transformative learning theory as a lens to gauge the extent to which they have experienced perspective transformations. The study categorises a number of different responses and proposes a tentative model for professional development in tertiary education settings based on the centrality of critical reflection and discourse.

    Read article: The transformative potential of the DiAL-e framework: Crossing boundaries, pushing frontiers

  • Object appreciation through haptic interaction

    Matthew Butler, Peter Neave

    Much research and development has gone into creating a viable means to interact with virtual objects. Haptic devices, such as the Phantom Omni by Sensable Technologies, provide a means of using computer graphics and force feedback to create a multimodal sensory experience. We use touch to conceptualize objects and obtain a greater understanding of them, however objects such as artworks are usually prohibited from being interacted with in this way. Some artworks, like Michelangelo’s David, have been replicated in 3D. These virtual artworks can be sent all over the world and users can interact with them by means of a haptic device. This paper compares the different characteristics of existing haptic-enabled museums and further questions the worth of using haptics as a means to communicate tactile information to museum visitors. A system has been developed to allow users the ability to interact with a replica of Michelangelo’s David. Response has been analysed, showing that the possible benefits of virtual museums include the opportunity for greater engagement with artworks by visitors, new means of educating, and storing existing historic artwork for future generations.

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  • Students’ evaluations of teaching quality and their unit online activity: An empirical investigation

    Rodney Carr, Pauline Hagel

    This paper reports on an investigation of the relationship between students’ level of online activity in units in a business faculty and their evaluations of teaching quality in these units. The analysis was conducted using student evaluation data from 2004 to 2007 together with data for student online activity for one semester. We compare on-campus and off-campus students and undergraduate and postgraduate students. The results indicate that students’ evaluations of units have improved on all surveyed criteria during the five years. We also show that for some cohorts student online activity is associated with greater satisfaction with teaching. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for further research and teaching practice.

    Read article: Students’ evaluations of teaching quality and their unit online activity: An empirical investigation

  • Examining facilitators’ habits of mind and learners’ participation

    Wing Sum Cheung, Khe Foon Hew

    The use of online- and blended-learning is growing very fast in universities. Given this interest in online-/blended-learning, understanding how to promote participation among learners in asynchronous online discussions, which is considered an integral part of online/blended-learning has become increasingly crucial. Previous research has examined how factors, such as course design, and the amount of facilitator involvement can affect learner participation. However, none of the previous studies hitherto has examined facilitators’ thinking dispositions or habits of mind. Habits of mind may be defined as the characteristics of what intelligent people do and think when they face an issue or a problem, and thus may play an important role in influencing the degree of learner participation. This proposed study aims to advance the line of research that examines facilitators’ influence in promoting learners’ participation by analysing their habits of mind. The following habits of mind of the facilitators will be examined: (a) awareness of own thinking, (b) accurate and seeks accuracy, (c) open-minded, (d) taking a position when the situation warrants it, and (e) sensitive to others. We refer the degree of learners’ participation as the quantity of message posted by the learners. A case study methodology approach will be used in this study. The primary sources of data will be the online message postings of both the facilitators.

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  • Mobile Web 2.0: The new frontier

    Thomas Cochrane

    Today’s smartphones are mini multimedia computers, they are generally equipped with: 3G and WiFi internet connectivity, a 2 to 5 megapixel camera, Bluetooth for device interconnectivity, USB2 for computer connectivity and media synchronisation. They have digital media storage capacities of 1 to 16 GB, will play back most standard audio, image, and video formats, are GPS enabled, are integrated into online media and social networking sites (Flickr, YouTube, blogs, MySpace, Facebook etc…), and are capable of recording (and some can even edit and display on large screen video devices) video between QVGA and VGA quality. These smartphones are promoted by their manufacturers as lifestyle tools to enable sharing experiences and social networking via web2.0 sites, and mobile friendly media portals (e.g. Ovi, iTunes Store). The ubiquitous connection to web2.0 tools and collaborative communication and user generated content creation capabilities of these devices make them ideal tools for facilitating social constructivist learning environments across multiple learning contexts. However, designing good pedagogical environments to integrate the successful use of these tools is essential. This paper reports on the progress of several qualitative action research trials being conducted to investigate the impact of smartphones and mobile web2.0 on teaching and learning in higher education. These trials illustrate a variety of pedagogical designs and the creation and support of mobile learning environments.

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  • Cloudworks: Social networking for learning design

    Gráinne Conole, Juliette Culver, Perry Williams, Simon Cross, Paul Clark, Andrew Brasher

    Why do some social networking services work and others fail? Can we apply the best of Web 2.0 principles to an educational context? More specifically can we use this as a means of shifting teaching practice to a culture of sharing learning ideas and designs? Can we harness the potential of technologies to create more engaging learning experiences for students? These are the key questions this paper addresses. We describe how we are using the concept of ‘object-orientated social networking’ to underpin the creation of a social networking tool, Cloudworks, for sharing learning ideas and designs.

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Showing 1–13 of 135 articles