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2008: 2008 ASCILITE Conference Companion Materials

Reviewed abstracts for posters and symposia/panel sessions for the ASCILITE 2008 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 - Posters

  • Building community: Introducing ePortfolios in university education

    Meaghan Botterill, Garry Allan, Sally Brooks

    This paper reports on the introduction of a trial of an ePortfolio product at an enterprise level at RMIT University. The work has been undertaken as part of RMIT’s strategic e-Learning Advancement Program (REAP), which places emphasis on the utilisation of blogs, wikis and ePortfolios as online learning environments that will strengthen the University’s ability to provide flexible assessment practices and support student career development. The trial will run across second semester 2008 till the end of 2009. In following recognised good practice in introducing ePortfolios in the university sector, we report upon the implementation of the trial to date. An important aspect of the trial is developing an associated Community of Practice both within RMIT and through inter- university collaborations. Within RMIT, the Community of Practice extends across both TAFE and Higher Education along with professional support services. The professional breadth of this group has expanded the legitimacy of the trial and led to the creation of CareerTrack, a resource for student career development directly positioned to support ePortfolio use. This trial has the direct aim of developing a whole of University culture that is informed in its use of electronic Portfolios.

    Read article: Building community: Introducing ePortfolios in university education

  • Beauty and blended learning: E-learning in vocational programs

    Melanie Brown

    This case study set out to discover how the provision of blended learning focussing on course essential vocabulary, affected students in a module of Diploma of Beauty and Spa Therapies at the Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) in Hamilton New Zealand. The results were surprising. The module chosen for this study, Electrolysis and Electrical Therapies is one of the most complex, vocabulary rich modules in the diploma. The program manager described students who choose to study beauty therapy as practically minded. She explained that these students often struggle with the complicated physical and chemical theory they are required to understand. I designed and developed an online course specifically aimed at supporting the learning of technical vocabulary and complex concepts. This online course ran alongside the face-to-face lessons from a specialist beauty therapist, work experience placements and practical sessions where students perform treatments on paying clients. The response from students, the tutor and program manager in interviews showed that the tools created were appreciated because they allowed more flexibility and highlighted the connections between the various components of the course. However, there were also some puzzling results. Does providing resources, online, in print and in practical lessons actually mean students will use these resources and learn from them? This paper will give a brief outline of the study, and then describe the effect the blended course designed for this study had on beauty therapy students.

    Read article: Beauty and blended learning: E-learning in vocational programs

  • Online assessment at CSU: Snapshots in time

    Janet Buchan

    This poster proposal uses snapshots in time to follow the progress of online assessment at Charles Sturt University. Snapshots into the scholarly use of learner oriented online assessment are described from the findings of a University wide research study. The author reflects on snapshots in time that have led to a personal understanding of the complex integrated network of responsibility in online assessment that involves academics, ICT support services, educational designers and other divisions. This understanding has led to the formation of new frameworks for managing online assessment and, more broadly, online learning. These frameworks are contributing to ongoing development in tools, processes, procedures and policy as the University absorbs the impact of increased access to online learning as the result of the introduction of a new, open source, learning management system.

    Read article: Online assessment at CSU: Snapshots in time

  • A decade of change @ CSU 1999 – 2009

    Janet Buchan, Lynnette Flynn, Deborah Murdoch, Philip Uys

    This poster depicts the progression of multimedia learning resource development and related systems at Charles Sturt University (CSU) over the last 10 years from ad hoc audio and visual production to mainstreamed digital multimedia development. In 2000 the Centre for Enhancing Learning and Teaching (CELT) established three campus-based Learning Media Laboratories. These are staffed by educational designers/technologists who assist staff with the development of innovative multimedia resources (largely through CDs) to enhance their teaching and to supplement their print based subject resources. As the demand for the affordances of the medium increased, the individual ‘boutique’ production of multimedia became unsustainable and the university moved to a mainstreamed and centrally supported process for multimedia development. The multimedia development process is designed to be responsive to the changing needs of staff and students in an ever changing landscape of educational technology. With an increased focus on blended learning, and following the university-wide implementation in 2008 of an open source learning management system, CSU Interact, further changes in demand for support of multimedia development are anticipated.

    Read article: A decade of change @ CSU 1999 – 2009

  • Air Gondwana: Teaching negotiation skills by utilising virtual worlds for an authentic learning experience

    Des Butler

    The first year subjects Contracts A and Contracts B at the Queensland University of Technology Faculty of Law are assigned the task of teaching the skill of negotiation at a basic level as part as an integrated graduate capabilities program. Until 2008 this was done using a traditional approach involving a lecture, print materials and role plays. In 2008 the traditional approach was replaced with Air Gondwana, a multimedia program which is centred on the dealings of a fictional airline. Among other media, it utilises “machinima” - movies and stills created using virtual environments, in this case the Second Life environment and the Flight Simulator X computer game (with permission from Microsoft) - to create an engaging and authentic learning experience for “millennial students”. Air Gondwana is founded upon a range of learning theory including social constructivism, Collin’s “cognitive apprenticeship” model and Laurillard’s model for successful learning in law.

    Read article: Air Gondwana: Teaching negotiation skills by utilising virtual worlds for an authentic learning experience

  • Construct validity and reliability of the Hybrid e- Training questionnaire

    Rosseni Din, Mohamad Shanudin Zakaria, Khairul Anwar Mastor, Mohamed Amin Embi

    Hybrid E-Training has become prevalent in the field of computer and educational technology for both who are in the field and not exactly in the field. We were interested to examine how well was the e-Training implementation conducted in a a hybrid environment. Thus, we developed a questionnaire to measure meaningfulness of the Hybrid e-Training. The questionnaire has sections on demographic (section A), 21-item assessing meaningful learning (section B) and 61-item assessing perception towards the Hybrid E-Training system (section C). This paper discusses present study which examines the construct validity and reliability of section C. Based on the 213 sample data collection, the overall reliability coefficients for section C was 0.986. Reliability at the scale levels for section C were also acceptable ranging from 0.886 to 0.971. Overall analyses suggested that section C of the questionnaire is reliable to measure a hybrid e-Training system.

    Read article: Construct validity and reliability of the Hybrid e- Training questionnaire

  • Scientific inquiry: Where is it in the educational technology landscape?

    Kristine Elliott, Kevin Sweeney, Victor Galea, Helen Irving, Elizabeth Johnson

    This paper describes some of the challenges facing science educators at tertiary level. It subsequently introduces a project supported by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (formally Carrick), which aims to investigate the effective use of educational technologies to promote understanding of scientific inquiry and development of skills necessary to conduct successful investigations. The project will use a qualitative research framework to examine current practice and to determine best practice in teaching scientific inquiry skills to bioscience students. Study findings are expected to provide guidance on developing skills in the next generation of bioscientists.

    Read article: Scientific inquiry: Where is it in the educational technology landscape?

  • Using mobile phones to augment teacher learning in environmental education

    Brian Ferry

    This study contributes to the professional development of teachers in the use of mobile phones to inform their pedagogy. The focus is on how action learning sets helped pre- service teachers (PST) to effectively use mobile phones to augment their understanding of the impact of their teaching of an environmental education unit in local primary schools. These school-based, action learning sets consisted of groups of four to six PST allocated to the five schools that participated in the study. For six weeks the twenty-two participating PST worked in pairs to teach a class for two hours per week. During this time the PST had access to mobile phones that had an inbuilt camera, Excel, Word, audio recording, video recording, Internet, email and other web features. These phones were used to support and inform the teaching of an environmental education unit that had as it focus waste and energy management. The findings indicated that in this context, the action learning sets provided a vehicle for sustained and targeted professional growth. Besides providing evidence of teacher learning and a record of teaching dilemmas that arose, the mobile phones were used to send supportive SMS messages among PST immediately before or after teaching.

    Read article: Using mobile phones to augment teacher learning in environmental education

  • A vision for truly adaptable and accessible learning objects

    Stavroula Gkatzidou, Elaine Pearson

    In the present landscape of technological and social change, the increasing demand for new educational approaches and pedagogies, and the growing emphasis on the need to cater for the needs and preferences of the individual learner, are shifting the focus to the integration of adaptive and ubiquitous learning. In order to respond to the challenge of providing truly learner-centered, accessible, personalised and flexible learning, this research suggests a solution which is based on the principle that learning content can be generated from adaptable aggregations of learning objects and media components using proven learning patterns. This paper proposes a transformation, augmentation and substitution service (TASS), which by using a variant of IMS AccessForAll works on available metadata and user profiles to generate alternative, equivalent learning experiences relating to a user’s declared needs, preferences and learning styles. TASS encompasses methods to retrieve a learning object upon request by a user, unpack and disaggregate the learning object, execute the adaptation process, re-aggregate the learning object components and deliver the adapted learning object to the user in the form in which it is required.

    Read article: A vision for truly adaptable and accessible learning objects

  • Web-based lecture technologies: Guidelines to support learning and teaching

    Maree Gosper, Margot McNeill, Karen Woo, Rob Phillips, Greg Preston, David Green

    Web-based lecture technologies (WBLT), designed to digitally record lectures for delivery over the web, are just one of a range of information and communication technologies that have been introduced in response to the changing context of higher education in the past decade. Lectopia (formerly known as iLecture) is one such technology being adopted by Australian universities.

    Read article: Web-based lecture technologies: Guidelines to support learning and teaching

  • Use of interactive multimedia programs for pathology e-learning: Strengths and weaknesses

    Howard Grossman, Virginia Grossman

    As a medium for learning pathology, tutorials based on interactive multimedia programs offer a number of potential advantages by comparison with traditional microscope-based classes. However, given a choice between computer-based tutorials, microscope-based practical classes, or a combination both, the majority of students prefer the combination (blended learning). In the present study involving 204 medical and paramedical students, we sought to clarify the reasons for this choice. The features of computer-based tutorials the students considered most useful included illustration of concepts with images and animations, accessibility (outside class hours), self-paced learning and opportunities for self-assessment. The microscope was seen as valuable because it provided “hands-on” experience of real examples of disease, rather than the ideal images seen on the computer. The best approach was considered to be using e-learning to provide basic information, followed by microscope-based case studies.

    Read article: Use of interactive multimedia programs for pathology e-learning: Strengths and weaknesses

  • Supporting the design of online learning through use of learning designs

    Jennifer Jones

    The PhD study outlined in this poster addresses the need for more targeted development of university teacher's integration of digital technologies into the design of their courses in higher education. Technology use and integration in a rapidly changing environment poses a challenge for university teachers and the current use of technology in higher education falls short of expectations. It has been suggested that the problem is due to the separation of technology from both pedagogy and content knowledge (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). This study investigates the use of learning designs to support the process of designing units of study and the development of knowledge around that process. Using a multiple case study approach, the study focuses on deepening understandings of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge throughout the design process and the identification of methods to support university teachers.

    Read article: Supporting the design of online learning through use of learning designs

  • Educational technology to train teachers of minority languages in Canada: Challenges and successes

    Thierry Karsenti, Diane Lataille-Demore, Michel Demore

    Canada is the world’s second largest country by total area, occupying most of northern North America. For its ten provinces and three territories, Canada must offer education in either English or French, the country’s two official languages. This raises many challenges, particularly in areas or provinces where one language, usually French, is a minority language. For example, in Ontario, Canada’s second largest province, there is a significant shortage of qualified French-speaking teachers. Moreover, although many schools employ some teachers who are not fully qualified, it would be unthinkable to remove them from the classroom for further training, given the lack of teachers. To cope with this challenge, the School of Education of Laurentian University launched a distance teacher training program. Early into the program, the candidates found that distance education was insufficient to help them meet the challenges of classroom teaching. After conducting interviews with our prospective teachers (n = 125), we realised that the theoretical content provided through the distance program needed to be complemented by classroom observations. However, this appeared to be impossible in the circumstances. In this paper, we highlight the findings of our study on the use of educational technologies to train minority-language teachers in Canada. We will focus specifically on the video component that we included in the distance training course. We will show how the videos (over 75 real-life recordings of teachers and pupils in a variety of common pedagogical situations) actually benefited the teachers-in- training, who reported increased feelings of competence, among others.

    Read article: Educational technology to train teachers of minority languages in Canada: Challenges and successes

Showing 1–13 of 29 articles