moving beyond blackboard: the vle journey at dundee

E-­‐Learning  for  the  Learner:  the  challenge  of  providing  learner  centred  educa6on  in  the  Age  of  the  Internet  

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     Moving  Beyond  Blackboard:          The  VLE  journey  at  Dundee          Natalie  Lafferty              

VLE  -­‐  Gone  full  circle  a  bit  of  a  bumpy  ride  

Blackboard  VLE  

Curriculum  Map  

Loss  of  curriculum  map  

Customised  Year  Pages  

Student  &  staff  feedback  

Increasingly  nega6ve  •  Usability  issues  •  Loss  of  curriculum  map  •  Loss  of  6metable  •  Access  issues  •  Staff  disengagement      

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VLE  -­‐  One  size  does  not  fit  all  

Dundee  MBChB  -­‐  Spiral  curriculum  

VLE  primarily  just  suppor6ng  transmission  of  informa6on?  

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tos/tedd

y-­‐rised

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http://www.dontbeasalmon.net/med.html

•  Commonly  used  as  a  blogging  pla_orm  •  Open  source  with  large  developer  community  

•  Used  in  in  higher  educa6on  to  support  online  learning  

•  Wide  range  of  plug-­‐ins  support  customisa6on  

First  pilots    Blogging  doctors  suppor6ng  learning  

Student  Feedback  Useful  links  to  journals,  other  sites,  embedded  video    Informa6on  easy  to  find    Good  revision  aid    78%  wanted  other  teaching  blocks  to  do  something  similar    Lack  of  forma6ve  assessment  opportuni6es      http://www.flickr.com/photos/nfsa/4580070895/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Students  liked  &  wanted  more  forma6ve  assessment  

Second  phase  pilots  -­‐  WordPress  installed  on  local  server  University  LDAP  login  

Delivering  lectures  -­‐  interac6ve  6metable  -­‐    forma6ve  assessment  -­‐  ask  Dundee  Chest  

Student  Feedback  85%  preferred  it  to  Blackboard    Blog  format  more  intui6ve  &  easy  to  use  and  explore    Loved  sefng  the  site  to  my  homepage  so  could  easily  check  announcements  &  latest  comments    

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Replica6ng  DundeeChest    approach  in  Blackboard  

Student Feedback The  actual  learning  in  Endocrinology  was  almost  always  excellent  and  I  enjoyed  it.  However  I  found  the  Blackboard  experience  very  poor.  (It  was  equally  poor  in  semester  one  and  two  of  first  year).    Having  a  Dundee  Endocrinology  developed  like  Dundee  Chest  would  be  absolutely  excellent  -­‐  going  back  to  using  Blackboard  amer  having  Dundee  Chest  was  very  depressing.  

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Student Feedback The  blog  format  was  leaps  and  bounds  be9er  than  blackboard.  It’s  intui6ve,  easy  to  use,  and  be9er  to  students  to  explore  all  the  resources  available  (much  of  which  I  didn't  even  know  about  simply  because  of  BB's  format).    

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4th  &  5th  year  study  guides  staff  &  students  

Staff  Feedback  

Easy to use

Ease of access in NHS

Speed of access

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Personalisa6on  

Reflec6ng  the  personality  and  flavour    of  each  individual  clinical  specialty  

Flexibility  to  support  teaching  

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Increased  staff  engagement  in  the  use  of  educa6onal  technology  focusing  on  what  

and  how  they  wanted  to  teach  

Implementa6on          

Undergraduate  Medical  Educa6on  Commi9ee  decision  to  migrate  Phase  2  teaching  from  Blackboard  

to  Dundee  MBChB  learning  portal  for  2011/12  

Integra6ng  early  years  teaching  with  clinical  years  teaching  

Integra6ng  curriculum  themes  

Providing  links  &  pulling  in  informa6on  from  journals  &  social  bookmarks  using  RSS  feeds  

TWITTER  

Phase  2  Student  Feedback  I  think  medblogs  is  a  great  addi6on  to  the  elearning  environment.    Medblogs  is  a  fantas6c  resource  and  much  more  useful  than  Blackboard  ever  was.    Medblogs  system  was  extremely  useful  and  very  user  friendly      

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Phase  2  Student  Feedback  I  think  medblogs  is  a  great  addi6on  to  the  elearning  environment.    Medblogs  is  a  fantas6c  resource  and  much  more  useful  than  Blackboard  ever  was.    Medblogs  system  was  extremely  useful  and  very  user  friendly      

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Phase  2  Student  Feedback    Areas  for  improvement  •  Discussion  board  •  Announcement  management  •  Missing  lectures  •  More  forma6ve  assessment  

wanted  •  More  interac6ve  elearning  

tutorials  wanted  

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Implementa6on          

Migra6on  of  Phase  3  clinical  teaching  from  Blackboard  to  Dundee  MBChB  learning  portal  

 for  2012/13  &  integra6on  with  new  6metable  and  learning  repository  

Stage  1  -­‐  B

espo

ke  

Teacher  centred  –  informa6on  transmission    

Phase  2  -­‐  B

lackbo

ard   Teacher  

centred  –  informa6on  transmission  &  technology  led  

Phase  3  -­‐  W

ordp

ress  

Student  centred  –    Self-­‐directed  learning  &  educa6onally  led  

VLE  Journey  

(Siemens  2005;  Sandars  2009)      

Student developed content  

Stage  1    Bespoke  In-­‐house  VLE  

Stage  2  Blackboard  Ins6tu6onal  VLE  

Stage  3  Wordpress    Mul6user    site  

Dundee  VLE  Journey  

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Overall Outcomes •  A community of interest and learning practice

is emerging •  Teaching staff becoming more confident in

using technology to support their teaching •  Teachers sharing good practice •  Increasing student engagement •  Staff & student advisory groups informing

future developments

Natalie  Lafferty  Email:  n.t.lafferty@dundee.ac.uk    Twi9er:  @nlafferty    

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     QuesFons