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2007: ASCILITE 2007 Conference Proceedings

 

 

 

 

The proceedings of the 2007 ASCILITE Conference.

R. J. Atkinson, C. McBeath, S. K. A. Soong, & C. Cheers (Eds) (2007).

ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning.

Proceedings ASCILITE 2007.

Centre for Educational Development, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

December 2-5, 2007.

Published: 30 November 2007

ASCILITE Conference - Concise Papers

  • Achieving incremental successes in courseware development through prototyping

    Soo Teong Beng, Liew Seng Seh

    The challenges in the early stages of courseware development are of a different nature, and often subtler, compared to those at the later stages. Addressing these challenges requires sensitivity to the process dynamics, besides the technical know-how. This paper is based on an in-progress project to develop self-instructional material for online learning. The project is carried out jointly by Temasek Engineering School and the Learning Academy at Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore. In this project, prototyping is adopted as the developmental model to navigate the project through the early challenges, with the intention of securing incremental small-step successes. Within this developmental model, the paper then describes the intricacies of integrating instructional design principles and evaluation techniques to tackle the challenges of the evolving prototypes. This paper represents the reflections of the authors as practicing instructional designers, and it should interest readers who want to see a stronger connection between the theory and practice of courseware development. The general reader may also find the concept of prototyping helpful, given the constant demand to innovate in the learning contexts, and may well find some applicability for it in their own contexts.

    Read article: Achieving incremental successes in courseware development through prototyping

  • Interaction patterns and knowledge construction using synchronous discussion forums and video to develop oral skills

    Santhakumari Thanasingam, Swee Kit Alan Soong

    This study evaluates the effectiveness of using streaming video and synchronous discussion forums to provide feedback to a presenter in an oral skills tutorial. A pilot online tutorial was trialled with a group of 13 students enrolled for English Proficiency at the Nanyang Technological University. A survey was administered to collect information on the participants’ perception of their learning. Discourse threads created on the discussion forum were also analysed to evaluate the effectiveness of the online activity. Students felt the forum supported their learning and enhanced their understanding. The findings also showed a high level of student involvement in the oral activity. The quality of knowledge in the form of the feedback constructed by students was a significant finding in this study. The feedback jointly constructed by students was found to be accurate and insightful without requiring much involvement from the moderator or tutor. Synchronous discussion forums and streaming video were found to be effective tools for teaching oral skills.

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  • Promoting staff learning about assessment through digital representations of practice: Evaluating a pilot project

    Rosemary Thomson, Gail Wilson

    The Assessment Snapshots digital resource is a current project to support academic learning about assessment by diffusing knowledge and understanding of locally contextualised good practice in assessment at an Australian university. An initial collection of Snapshots was made available to academic staff on the University’s web site in early 2006. This paper describes how the resource has been utilised by teachers and explains the uses that academic developers have made of the resource in supporting teachers to extend their learning about assessment. The paper reflects on the extent to which the pilot project has been successful in disseminating effective assessment practice and promoting reflection and discussion about assessment issues. It proposes future directions for more effectively integrating and contextualising resources for professional learning with teachers’ everyday teaching practice.

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  • Responding to learners’ need for choice: Flexible learning modes for creating an e-learning community

    Julie van den Eynde, Peter A. Newcombe, Caroline H. Steel

    Students need to balance work, family, and their university learning. In an effort to manage these conflicting demands, students make pragmatic choices which can lead to almost empty lecture halls and tutorial rooms by mid-semester. In response, this action research project piloted an e-learning portal for criminology students in 2006. Four courses were delivered by two different flexible learning modes, across 2 different levels of students. Early results indicated no difference in learning outcomes for either less experienced learners (second year level) or more experienced learners (third year level). High levels of satisfaction with online teaching were found from both student groups in either flexible learning modes. High levels of satisfaction in student learning were evident from experienced learners with less robust levels of satisfaction with their learning from less experienced learners. As this project is driven by a cycle of evaluation and then action, adjustments were made in flexible delivery modes for less experienced learners in 2007. For 2008, this e-learning project intends to build a community of learners for the criminology student body. Methods and measures are discussed, as well as implications.

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  • Motivation and computer game based learning

    Nicola Whitton

    It is commonly assumed in the research literature that computer games are a useful educational tool because students find them motivating. This paper questions this assumption and describes a study that was undertaken to examine the motivational potential of using computer game-based learning with students in Higher Education. A series of twelve in-depth interviews were carried out to explore individuals’ perceptions of, and motivations for, game-playing for leisure and study. These interviews were followed by a larger-scale survey, examining student motivations to play games and to learn with games; data from 200 students were collected and analysed. The results of this study indicate that a large proportion of the students who took part in the study do not find games motivational at all, and that there is no evidence of a relationship between an individual’s motivation to play games recreationally and his or her motivation to use games for learning. These findings indicate that employing games for their motivational benefits alone is not justification for their use. However, certain computer games may provide other pedagogical benefits and there is evidence from the study that while individuals may not find games intrinsically motivational, they may be motivated to use them for learning if they are perceived as the most effective way to learn.

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  • Closed book, invigilated exams versus open book, open web exams: An empirical analysis

    Jeremy B. Williams, Amy Wong

    This paper reports on the latest findings of an on-going research project evaluating the effectiveness of ‘open book, open web’ (OBOW) examinations. An assessment instrument used in a growing number of higher education institutions around the world, the OBOW examination model under consideration in this project is distinguishable by its firm commitment to the notion of authentic assessment, and the harnessing of the information and communication technologies to bring the ‘examination paper’ to life. The results of previous research undertaken have indicated that the OBOW approach receives the strong endorsement of students on a number of fronts, not least the quality of the learning outcomes. Scepticism remains, however, on the part of some traditionalists within educational circles who argue for the retention of invigilated examinations as this is the only means of ensuring that a student’s work is their own and theirs alone. This paper opposes this position, presenting the case for an examination instrument that is more in keeping with modern learning theory.

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  • A knowledge management approach to developing communities of practice amongst university and college staff

    Neil Witt, Anne McDermott, Mike Peters, Mark Stone

    The Higher Education Learning Partnerships Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (HELP CETL) supports staff involved in the delivery of higher education level Foundation degrees through a network of nineteen further education colleges. This is managed centrally through the University of Plymouth’s partnership’s faculty but raises the challenge of making best use of the vast amount of knowledge and expertise about teaching and related issues which is held by a range of people who are displaced by geographic location and are disconnected from other practitioners in other institutions. A mechanism by which this expertise might be shared was required and to achieve this, a knowledge management system using a Community of Practice (CoP) framework was investigated and then employed as the key HELP CETL communication and information sharing tool. The Tomoye Ecco Knowledge Management System was used to create the Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN), which provides a set of features designed to enable community members to become involved and share ideas and experiences. This paper reflects on experiences of selecting, implementing, evaluating and further developing KEN for a large scale deployment.

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  • How do students ‘get learning’? : Unexpectedly diverse pathways in an activity based, online orientation site

    Helen Wozniak, Mary Jane Mahony, Jenny Pizzica, Marianna Koulias

    Students face a variety of hurdles when commencing further study involving online learning environments. There is no shortage of print-based orientation advice and static online tips; however, rarely do these supports mirror the activities and pedagogies of formal online learning. Two collaborating faculties of health at the University of Sydney developed a modular orientation site known as GetLearning for beginning postgraduate students. Tracking data, moderator journal data and design team reflections were analysed to identify student use patterns. This paper presents insights about access patterns and interactions with the resource. Findings reinforce the need for timely, interaction-based orientation activities, and highlight student need for both individual support and ongoing access to orientation style resources throughout the semester.

    Read article: How do students ‘get learning’? : Unexpectedly diverse pathways in an activity based, online orientation site

  • Process study of verbal interactions in problem based learning

    Elaine H. J. Yew, Henk G. Schmidt

    The goal of this study was to increase our understanding of the learning-oriented verbal interactions taking place between students during the entire problem-based learning (PBL) process, and to identify the relationships between what students say with their learning outcomes. The verbal interactions of one PBL group of five students throughout an entire PBL process were recorded in this data-intensive case study consisting of more than 1000 utterances. Our results show that a large proportion of students’ learning-oriented verbal interaction focused on stating or recalling facts with a much lower percentage involving constructive statements, arguments, evaluation, proposals and critical questions. Simple correlation analysis indicated that percentages of questions, verification questions and requests correlated negatively with student achievement while critical questions, arguments and evaluations positively. At the practical level, suggestions that are relevant to educational practice can be derived from our observations. Furthermore, this study gives insight to the different types of group interactions during the entire PBL process, including those during the self-directed study time, to help us better understand the learning processes involved in PBL.

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  • Visualising and inferring LMS discussions

    Don Sheridan, Stephen Witherden

    This paper gives an example of how a visualising application applied to the database of a campus LMS could provide a quick and accurate reading on the success of discussions within a given class. The prototype presented has been applied to multiple streams of discussions within a large class to determine if collaboration and cooperation were in evidence. As institutions and academics become more accountable for educational outcomes, we need simple, effective ways to determine if best pedagogical practice in instructional design is in fact getting the desired results.

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Showing 118–127 of 127 articles